PLATE VIII.—MRS. A. L. LANGMAN
(In the collection of A. L. Langman, Esq., C.M.G.)
A portrait of the wife of A. L. Langman, Esq., C.M.G., who served
with the Langman Field Hospital, in connection with the equipment
of which for the South African War his father, Sir John Langman,
Bart., is remembered.
It is frequently enough the weakness of painters to return constantly in their art to some particular gesture or arrangement in which their mastery is complete. This has not been the case with Sargent; instead, his mastery has completed itself only through a constant encounter with new difficulties.
A quality of all great art is reticence, something which will never let the master, to whom it is not disastrous to be careless, be so; for carelessness nearly always means over-statement, and exaggeration. Ah! just the qualities if a work of art is to arrest attention in a modern exhibition. A common question at the Royal Academy is "Where are the Sargents?" by some enthusiastic visitor who has passed them several times. No, Sargent's victories do not startle, winged victories do not, but advertisements do.