"Sargent & Paris" at the Met

To a New Yorker, "the Met" may signify the Metropolitan Opera or the Metropolitan Museum of Art (there are also the Mets, but that's another story). On Friday Martha and I went to the art museum to see Sargent & Paris, an exhibition that focuses on the time John Singer Sargent (self portrait,1907, at left; public domain via Wikimedia Commons) spent in Paris, which was a large part of his early life. His father, FitzWilliam Sargent, an eye surgeon, gave up his practice and moved to Paris with his wife, Mary Newbold (Singer) Sargent, whose inheritance enabled them to remain expatriates. While they spent much time in Paris, they traveled extensively. Their son John was born while they were visiting Florence.

During Sargent's childhood and youth the family continued its footloose ways. He had no formal education but showed early talent for drawing. He received instruction from his parents; his mother was an amateur painter and his father a medical illustrator. During their travels he was inspired by great artworks he saw in museums throughout Europe. In 1874, at the age of eighteen, he gained admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He did well in his studies there, and also enjoyed the companionship of, and instruction from, other artists. Among these were Carolus-Duran, Léon Bonnat, and Paul César Helleu, whose gift to New York is the Constellation Mural on the ceiling at Grand Central Terminal. He and Sargent had a long friendship; he and his wife are shown in a Sargent painting included below. While in Paris Sargent also enjoyed companionship and inspiration from a fellow American, James Carroll Beckwith, with whom he shared studio space.

When Martha and I arrived at the exhibition it was crowded, possibly because it would be closing after two days. I tried to spot paintings that seemed especially interesting. What follows is a somewhat random sample of Sargent's work while he lived in Paris, and some after.

Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver (c. 1879) The Art Institute of Chicago. While Sargent is best known as a portrait painter, he also had a strong interest in music, played piano well, and liked to paint musical subjects. This painting of an orchestra rehearsing is strongly impressionistic. I was drawn to it by the swirling pattern of white sheet music. The figures in the foreground are circus performers.

Édouard Pailleron (1879). Oil on canvas, 127 × 94 cm (50 × 37.01 in). Musée National du Château de Versailles. Unlike most of Sargent's portraits, this is informal in its arrangement. The subject is described in the notes accopanying the painting in the gallery as a satirical writer and "bohemian" who was an early admirer of Sargent's work, and commissioned the portrait.

Portrait of Edouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron (Édouard Pailleron's children) (1881). Oil on canvas, 152.4 × 175.3 cm (60 × 69 in). Des Moines Art Center, Iowa. This portrait of Pailleron's children, done two years after his portrait, is interesting for the children's dour expressions. According to the notes, ten year old Marie-Louise and Sargent "battled over her attire and pose" which necessitated mutiple sittings.

Atlantic Storm (1876), oil on canvas, National Museum Stockholm. Anyone who has known me, or been a reader of this blog, for some time, knows that, as a result of having crossed the Atlantic by ship four times in my childhood (my first crossing was a stormy one), I have a love for ships and the sea, as did Sargent. I was drawn to this painting because it shows a ship's stern pointing down as it climbs an oncoming wave. It also shows Sargent's talent for portraying sea scenes.

Mrs. Albert Vickers (Edith Foster) 1884 Natasha Oil on canvas Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia The Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, Jpeg: Pat Yates. I had to include one example of what's thought of as a "typical" sargent painting, a full length, carefully poised portrait of a  woman in elegant attire. I think this is an especially good example.

An Out-of-Doors Study, 1889. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 20.640. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum). Here's a plein air painting of Sargent's long time friend and fellow artist Paul Helleu, also at work on a painting, with his wife Alice snoozing behind him and their canoe beside them. The notes describe this as "a dynamic and modern composition."

This exhibition opened my eyes to many aspects of Sargent's work, and increased my appreciation of him as an artist.