American painting and its tradition

by John C. Van Dyke

He remained under Carolus for several years, assisted the master in some of his decorations, and soon began to produce noteworthy work of his own. One of his earliest portraits was that of Carolus himself, which at once became talked about, not only as a likeness of the famous master but as the work of a remarkable pupil. In 1878 he painted En route pour la pêche, a figure composition which attracted much attention in the Salon. The next year he went to Spain, and from that journey came “El Jaleo,” now in the Boston Museum, and a number of other Spanish pictures. These theme pictures, much as they were praised, did not, could not, determine the painter’s bent. Like other young men, he probably had determined nothing, and eventually let circumstances settle the matter of subject. He did not have to wait long. In 1881 he put out a full-length portrait called a “Lady with Rose” that had so much vitality about it, as well as charm, that it far outran all his earlier performances. The success of it, followed by the “Hall of the Four Children,” in which four of the Beit children were shown, and then the portrait of “Madame G——,” seemed automatically to place him among the portraitists.

The last-named picture, a full-length in profile, now in the Metropolitan Museum, set all Paris by the ears. The wonderful if somewhat sharp drawing of the face and head, the equally fine portraiture of the hands, arms, figure, and dress, commanded instant attention. The subject was a great beauty, and the painter, painting precisely what he saw, had dealt with her remorselessly. Even then they began to discuss Sargent as a character reader, an anatomist, a psychologist, a physiognomist—great nonsense to be sure, but nevertheless suggestive of his remarkable truth of observation. It was perhaps this very quality that soon brought him more commissions for portraits than he could fill and possibly led to the virtual abandonment for the time being of other themes.

In taking up portraiture as the field of his endeavor Sargent was perhaps wise as well as fortunate, for it requires the keen, cool observer, the man who can record the fact without romance, to make a good portrait-painter; and Sargent has proved himself an observer above all. He is not a poet in paint, nor does he indulge in sentiment, feeling, or emotion. He records the fact. If I apprehend him rightly, such theory of art as he possesses is founded in observation. One night in Gibraltar some fifteen years ago I was dining with him at the old Cecil Hotel. We had been on ship for a dozen days and were glad to get ashore. 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 genius a way of looking at things.” But whether Sargent has followed James, or James followed Sargent, in that definition, I am not able to record.

James, however, did not stop on that precise line. In 1887 in writing about Sargent he said: “The highest result is attained when to the element of quick perception a certain faculty of lingering reflection is added,” and he continued, “I mean the quality in the light of which the artist sees deep into his subject, undergoes it, absorbs it, discovers in it new things that were not on the surface, becomes patient with it, and almost reverent, and, in short, elevates and humanizes the technical problems.” James certainly meant by that sympathy, deep human interest, if not sentiment, feeling, and emotion; but Sargent never showed these qualities in his work and has more than once repudiated them by word of mouth. It is a popular contention that he does see “new things that were not on the surface,” that he is a character reader; and that he is a bitter satirist in paint. Again the painter has denied these alleged accomplishments, and with some warmth into the bargain.

Frank Millet told me years ago that Sargent, painting at Broadway, England, needed a white marble column in a picture he was then working upon. There was none at hand, but, at Millet’s suggestion, he got a carpenter to make a wooden column and had it painted a clean white. This was set up and Sargent tried to paint it in the picture as a marble column, but with the unexpected result that on the canvas it looked not like marble but like a wooden column painted white. He could not get below “the surface,” though he tried to do so. And Kenyon Cox in a strikingly just estimate of Sargent[17] tells this story: “He had painted a portrait in which he was thought to have brought out the inner nature of his sitter, and to have ‘seen through the veil’ of the external man. When asked about it he is said to have expressed some amazement at the idea, and to have remarked: ‘If there were a veil I should paint the veil; I can paint only what I see.’” And Cox adds: “Whether he said it or not, I am inclined to think that this sentence expresses the truth.” It does; and also Sargent’s self-imposed limitation. He does not want to see below the surface; he thinks the surface in itself, if rightly handled, is sufficient. But there is an explanation that may reconcile these different contentions.

[17] Old Masters and New, by Kenyon Cox, New York, 1905.

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 we do. Well, 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 depressions of the cheek or lines about the eyes or mouth or 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 or phase of character may be read in or out of the look, the portrait-painter does not usually know or care. It is not his business to know. 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 tale it may.

“Mrs. Pulitzer,” by John S. Sargent.

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. Nothing in the physical presence escapes him. The slight inclination of a head, the shyness of a glance, the mobility of a mouth, the uneasiness of a hand, the nervous strain of a gesture are all turned to account in the ultimate result. Every tone of color in itself and in its relation to the other tones, every light in its relation to its shadow and to the other lights, every melting contour in contrast with every accented contour, and every texture in relation to every other texture—all are caught within the angle of the painter’s focus.