American painting and its tradition

by John C. Van Dyke

His portraits are the complete demonstration of his observation. They may not be all that could be wished for in soul, but they are not lacking in physical life—in that which can be seen. You will not be able to look into the eyes and seem to know the inner consciousness of the sitter, as in a portrait by Rembrandt (the “soul” is Rembrandt’s, not the sitter’s); but you will feel the bodily presence, the physical fact, as you do in a portrait by Frans Hals. There is the Marquand portrait at the Metropolitan Museum to which reference may be made. How well he has emphasized the facts of the spare figure, the refined if somewhat weary face! How very effective the placing of the figure in the chair, the turn of the head, and that thin hand against which the head rests. Every physical feature is just as it should be. Look at the bone structure of the forehead, the setting of the eyes, the protrusion of the lower lip, the modelling of the mouth and chin. Could anything be more positive! The painter has given you only what he has seen, but can you not get out of these physical features—even from the thin, patrician hand—some indication of the man’s character? The painter does give the character of the sitter but not in the way the populace supposes. The effort is not conscious. The character is merely the result of accurately seeing and drawing the surface appearance.

All Sargent’s portraits of men are revelations of things seen and they are all based on the physical presence. The “Speaker Reed” and the “Mr. Chamberlain” are likenesses of men in the flesh, done apparently without a thought of their being statesmen. There is nothing of the official about them and you would not be able to say that they were political leaders. They did not look the politician in life and the painter would not go behind the facial report. Sometimes a knowledge of what the man really was may have proved bothersome to him. He told me in 1903 that he had done very little satisfactory work that year with portraits of officials at Washington. He liked his head of “General Leonard Wood” and was much interested in the type, but the standing portrait of “President Roosevelt” he did not think any too successful. The “President Wilson” done in 1917 is of a piece with the Roosevelt portrait and probably both were handicapped by shortness of time—insufficient time for complete observation. But aside from being hurried, the thought that he was painting people high in office and much was expected of him, must have had a deterrent effect upon his brush. For he could no more paint the office than he could paint behind the “veil” or get at the “soul.” John Hay, Edwin Booth, Richard M. Hunt were very distinguished characters, but Sargent had no recipe for painting distinction and had to paint what was before him. The result was that the Hay and the Hunt were in no way remarkable portraits, whereas the Booth was exceptionally fine. It was not the characters that Booth had played but his own gentle, refined nature that had left its mark upon his face. Sargent saw it readily enough and had no need to plough beneath the surface for it.

His method of procedure with women’s portraits is not different from that of men. He seeks the personal presence, sees keenly every physical peculiarity, and gives as truthfully as is consistent with pigments the facts as he sees them. There is no romance of mood, no reflective musing, no idealizing or prettifying of the likeness. All phases of fashionable life have come to his studio and he has painted a host of social celebrities, some of them more worthy of his brush than others. Many times he has painted the grand lady in flashing jewels and gorgeous robes and been accused of vulgarity in the doing of it. But the accusation will not hold. The vulgarity has been in the sitter and has been shown by the painter without feeling or perhaps quite unconsciously. Many times the lady, the robes, and the jewels have been given without a suspicion of vulgarity because there was none in the model. That wondrous creation that appeared in the. Salon so many years ago—the tall lady in the magenta gown—was something bordering on the bizarre; it was flashing, glittering, noisy, but not unrefined in any sense. The portrait of “Miss Terry as Lady Macbeth” is “stagey,” as perhaps it should be, for again the staginess was before the painter; but surely it is not wanting in taste. And for refinement, distinction, sensitiveness, what could be better than the beautiful portrait of “Lady Agnew”? Whatever may be the qualities or defects of the sitter, Sargent may be trusted to record the facts before him exactly as they are, and let the burden of their explanation fall on the friends or the family, if it must.

“Carnation Lily, Lily Rose,” by John S. Sargent.

In the National Gallery of British Art, London.

His successes in other fields of painting than portraiture are due to the same keenness of observation and are perhaps merely manifestations of the portrait instinct. The lovely “Carnation Lily Lily Rose” is little more than the portrait of two little girls lighting Chinese lanterns in a flower-garden. It is of course carefully arranged, and told with great beauty of color and light; but the painting of the lilies shows the same exactness of observation that characterizes the faces. They are portraits of lilies. “Carmencita” is again a portrait of a dancing-girl in costume, with powder on her face and rouge on her lips. She has paused a moment from dancing and is breathing quickly and Sargent chose that moment to paint her. His Venetian scenes, including the later water-colors, are again portraits of places just as his alligators lying in the mud, or his “St. Jerome” lying in the wood, or his marble quarries lying in the sun are striking likenesses of the objects themselves. They are all treated in the portrait spirit—that is, from the point of view of an observer and a recorder rather than a rhapsodist or a lover. Sargent does not rhapsodize, at least not in his works. The decoration in the Boston Public Library is possibly an exception. It evidently cost the painter much time and thought, but the symbolism of it bewilders and its excellence lies less in meaning or appropriateness than in masterful execution. It does not enthrall or sway or charm; it astonishes by the brilliancy of its coloring and the supreme excellence of its workmanship. It is something that one marvels over but cannot fall in love with. And the most satisfactory part of it is perhaps the panel of the prophets, which is essentially portraiture again—that is, something painted from the model.

If I have not misstated the case it would seem as though Sargent’s painting could be epitomized as nature plus an eye and a hand, external nature at that. He has never pretended or suggested that he delves beneath the surface, that he dreams or poetizes or evokes loveliness out of his inner consciousness and infuses it into his canvases. It is doubtful if he has even indulged to any great extent in that elevation of the technical problem by long reflection which Henry James refers to. From sheer truth of observation his children, as in the “Carnation Lily Lily Rose” or the “Beatrice,” are childlike, and perhaps shy, his young women graceful and possibly nervous or affected, his men forceful, mentally alert, occasionally posing for posterity. He tells the truth and knows not how to do otherwise. How radically different in result are the portraits of Lady Ian Hamilton, Mrs. Pulitzer, Mrs. Marquand, of Colonel Bruce, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Rockefeller! Yet who that has known the originals will say that they are not true to the originals!

“Carmencita,” by John S. Sargent.