IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
“Hosea,” a detail of the frieze of “The Prophets,” by John Singer Sargent, in the Public Library, Boston, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “American Mural Painters.”
JOHN SINGER SARGENT
Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course
John Singer Sargent has been called the most “modern of moderns, one of the most dazzling men of talent of the present day.”
Sargent is in reality an American only by parentage; for he was born at Florence, Italy, on January 12, 1858, and since 1884 has lived in London. Sargent’s father was Dr. Fitzwilliam Sargent, a distinguished Boston physician. Sargent as a child was very sensitive, and was greatly influenced by the art treasures of his birthplace. He received his early education in Italy and Germany, and his impressionable nature amid such surroundings was shaped by the atmosphere of the famous Tuscan city, which left its refining mark upon all his work. The parents of many artists of genius have attempted to dissuade their sons from becoming painters. On the contrary, however, Sargent’s parents encouraged him to draw from the canvases of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto.
In 1874, when Sargent was only eighteen, he went to Paris to study, entering the atelier of Carolus-Duran. A portrait of his teacher painted toward the close of his studentship won the commendation of the best judges. He received an honorable mention in the Salon in 1878, and in 1881 a second-class medal for his “Portrait of a Young Lady,” which has been made famous by the appreciation of Henry James, the distinguished American novelist. As an artist with a future he turned his steps to Spain. In Madrid he studied the canvases of Velasquez carefully, and this master has influenced his entire art career. He seemed to come so close to this great painter that he was enabled to bring into the nineteenth century the power of the most modern of fifteenth century painters.
Sargent returned to Paris in 1882 and exhibited “El Jaleo,” a picture representing a Spanish woman dancing, which attracted a great deal of attention, and is now in the Boston Art Museum. Soon afterward Sargent drifted to London, and in 1886 his “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” brought him immediate recognition. He rapidly became known in London as a brilliant portrait painter, and year by year his Academy portraits were the features of the exhibitions. His success was now assured, and his sitters included the men and women of greatest distinction in the literary, artistic, and social life of both Europe and America.