“Sargent is himself in his reading of character in his design, and in his style. To say this is not to forget his indebtedness, where style is concerned, to other painters, even, Carolus-Duran. I think there is something of Carolus-Duran in his mere cleverness which like so much that is fluent and self-possessed in modern craftsmanship, could have been developed in Paris and nowhere else. The broad slashing stroke of Hals has taught him something, it is fair to assume; and the influence of Velasquez in his work is sufficiently obvious. Yet there is not in all his painting the ghost of what it would be reasonable to call an imitative passage. He is no more a modern Hals or Velasquez than he is a modern Rembrandt or Botticelli, for he looks at life and art from a totally different point of view, not simply, or grandly, or tragically, or imaginatively, but with the detached intellectual curiosity of a man of the world.”

American Painting and Its Traditions

John Van Dyke

Courtesy of Scribner & Sons, 1919

“Sargent did not wholly achieve art, for some of it was born to him, and some of it, perhaps, was thrust upon him. Training started him right, but his great success is not wholly due to that. Genius alone can account for the remarkable content of his work.

“Sargent’s life has been the result of peculiar circumstances—fortunate circumstances some may think; unfortunate others may hold. At least they have been instrumental in bringing forth an accomplished painter whose art no one can fail to admire. That his work may be admired understandingly it is quite necessary to comprehend the personality of the artist—to understand his education, his associations, his artistic and social environments. For if the man himself is cosmopolitan his art is not less so. It is the perfection of world-style, the finality of method.

“If I apprehend Sargent rightly, such theory of art as he possesses is founded in observation. Some fifteen years ago, in Gibraltar, at the old Cecil Hotel, I was dining with him. That night, as a very unusual thing, Sargent talked about painting—talked of his own volition. He suggested his theory of art in a single sentence: ‘You see things that way’ (pointing slightly to the left) ‘and I see them this way’ (pointing slightly to the right). He seemed to think that would account for the variation or peculiarity of eye and mind, and with a manner of doing—a personal method—there was little more to art. Such a theory would place him in measured agreement with Henry James whose definition of art has been quoted many times: ‘Art is a point of view, and a genius a way of looking at things.’

“A painter who has been looking at human heads for many years sees more than the man who casually looks up to recognize an acquaintance on the street. I do not mean that he sees more ‘character’—that is more scholarship or conceit, or pride of purse or firmness of will or shrewdness of thought, but merely that he sees the physical conformation more completely than others do. Every one sooner or later moulds his own face. It becomes marked or set or shaped in response to continued methods of thinking and acting. When that face comes under the portrait painter’s eye, he does not see the scholar, the banker, the senator, the captain of industry; but he does see perhaps, certain depression of the cheek or lines about the eyes or mouth in contractions of the lips or protrusions of the brow or jaw that appeal to him strongly because they are cast in shadow or thrown up sharply in relief of light. These surface features he paints perhaps with more emphasis than they possess in the original because they appeal to him emphatically, and presently the peculiar look that indicates the character of the man appears. What the look may indicate, or what kind of phase of character may be read in or out of the look, the portrait-painter does not know or care. He paints what he sees and has as little discernment of a character as of a mind. He gives, perhaps, without knowing their meaning, certain protrusions and recessions of the surface before him and lets the result tell what it may. In the production of the portrait accurate observation is more than half the battle. If a painter sees and knows his subject thoroughly, he will have little trouble in telling what he sees and knows; and to say of Sargent that he observes rightly and records truly is to state the case in a sentence.”

OIL PAINTINGS

1 Portrait of Mrs. H. F. Hadden (1878). Loaned by Mrs. Hadden 2 The Lady with the Rose—My Sister (1882). Loaned by Mrs. Hadden 3 “Pointy” (1884). Loaned by Mrs. Hadden 4 The Simplon. Loaned by Mrs. Montgomery Sears 5 Portrait of Major Higginson Loaned by Harvard University 6 Portrait of Ex-President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University 7 Portrait of President Lowell. Loaned by Harvard University 8 Lake O’Hara. Loaned by Fogg Art Museum 9 Portrait of Miss Mary Elizabeth Garrett. Loaned by Johns Hopkins University 10 Portrait of Mrs. J. William White. Loaned by Mrs. White 11 Portrait of Mrs. Fiske Warren and Daughter. Loaned by Fiske Warren, Esq. 12 Portrait of Mrs. Endicott. Loaned by Mr. Wm. C. Endicott, Jr. 13 Portrait of Mrs. William Hartley Carnegie. Loaned by Mrs. Endicott 14 His Studio. Loaned by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 15 The Road. Loaned by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 16 Master and Pupils. Loaned by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 17 Head of Joseph Jefferson. Loaned by Mr. Sargent 18 Reconnoitering. Loaned by Mr. Sargent 19 Portrait of Joseph Pulitzer, Esq. Loaned by Mrs. Pulitzer 20 Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis. Loaned by Mr. Livingston Davis, Boston 21 Portrait of a Lady. Loaned by Mr. Augustus P. Loring 22 Portrait of Mrs. Augustus Hemenway. Loaned by Mrs. Hemenway 23 Portrait of Edward Robinson, Esq. Loaned by Mr. Robinson 24 Egyptian Girl 25 Syrian Goats 26 Spanish Stable 27 Camp Fire. Loaned by Mr. Thomas A. Fox 28 Robert Louis Stevenson. Loaned by Mrs. Payne Whitney 29 Portrait of John Hay, Esq. Loaned by Mr. Clarence L. Hay 30 Portrait of Miss Ada Rehan. Loaned by Mrs. G. M. Whitin 31 Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Field. Loaned by Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 32 Portrait of Mrs. Charles E. Inches. Loaned by Mrs. Inches, Boston 33 Portrait of Mrs. Adrian Iselin. Loaned by Miss Iselin 34 The Honorable Mrs. Frederick Guest. Loaned by Mrs. Phipps 35 Portrait of Mrs. Phipps and Winston. Loaned by Mrs. Phipps 36 Portrait of General Leonard Wood. Loaned by General Wood 37 The Sulphur Match. Loaned by Mr. Louis Curtis 38 Sketch of Edwin Booth. Loaned by Mrs. Willard Straight 39 A Street in Venice. Loaned by Mrs. Stanford White 40 Cypresses and Pines. Loaned by Copley Gallery 41 Portrait of Mrs. Henry White—neé Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford. Loaned by Honorable Henry White 42 Sketch of Mrs. Henry White—neé Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford. Loaned by Honorable Henry White 43 Portrait of Mrs. John J. Chapman. Loaned by Mrs. Richard Aldrich 44 Venetian Interior. Loaned by Carnegie Institute 45 Portrait of Homer Saint-Gaudens and Mother. Loaned by Mrs. Saint-Gaudens 46 Graveyard in Tyrol. Loaned by Robert Treat Paine, 2nd 47 Mussel Gatherers. Loaned by Mrs. Carroll Beckwith 48 The Fountain. Loaned by Art Institute of Chicago 49 Portrait of Mrs. Charles Gifford Dyer. Loaned by Art Institute of Chicago 50 Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Lincoln Manson. Loaned by Mrs. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer 51 Moorish Courtyard. Loaned by Mr. James H. Clarke 52 Venetian Bead Stringers. Loaned by the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy 53 Interior—The Confession. Loaned by Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald 54 Portrait of Miss Katharine Pratt. Loaned by Mr. Frederick S. Pratt 55 Portrait of Mrs. Edward D. Brandegee. Loaned by Mr. Brandegee 56 Portrait of Peter Chardon Brooks, Esq. Loaned by Mrs. R. M. Saltonstall 57 Portrait of Mrs. Dave H. Morris as a Girl. Loaned by Mrs. Morris 58 Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes. Loaned by Mr. Phelps Stokes 59 Portrait of Mrs. Marquand. Loaned by Mr. Allan Marquand 60 The Chess Game. Property of Grand Central Art Galleries