Everything on the stage is artificial; what will this art, that has had of the reality of things all its strength and life, make of a purely theatrical picture—Miss Ellen Terry in a famous part? The artificiality of the stage always presents two aspects, that one in which we forget its artificiality and that other in which we remember it. And this latter, to my mind, is the aspect in which Sargent has painted this picture, without, as it were, ever stepping over the footlights into the world that only becomes real on the other side of them. But the exactness of his interpretation beautifully explains the scene.
"Carnation Lily, Lily Rose" was painted in a garden by the Thames. Two children are lighting up the Chinese lanterns, and in their light and with flowers surrounding, Sargent sees for a moment life itself by accident made idyllic. The picture is Japanese in its sense of decoration, as if decoration and idyllic moments always went together. It would almost seem so from the study of art, for without exception, those painters who have been conscious of the ideal and idyllic element in life, have always shown this through composition which, whilst dealing with a real scene, has taken a little of the reality from it. There must be an essentially musical element in the art which takes a mood as well as a scene from nature, and brings us by way of real scenes to that imaginative country which exists in every nature-lover's mind; a country partly made up of the remembrance of other places which have been like the place where he now stands.
Great tiger-lilies hang over the children. We almost expect in these surroundings pierettes or fantastic lovers, but we are kept close to the beauty of reality by the naturalism with which the children have been painted. Not one touch is given as a concession to their fairy and dramatic background, not one ribbon, nothing in the costume to enable them to enter into the patterned world of art as part of a design. For above everything the painter has wished to persuade us of life itself as a picture, and not of his ability to make these children the motifs of design. Their ordinariness irritates me personally, they do not seem quite to belong to their fairy land, but I recognise that this matter-of-factness peculiarly belongs to Sargent's art and am interested in the attitude that takes beauty so matter-of-factly.
IV
No one has encountered the beauty of woman's face more casually than Sargent, no one has made us realise more fully its significance as a fact in the world. After all we had thought perhaps we were partly deceived in this matter by the illusions of poets and love-sick painters, but approaching it without ecstasy, art has not been closer to this beauty than here. I am looking at a half-tone reproduction of a lady by Sargent, wondering whether in the history of English portrait painting an artist has approached as closely to the thoughts of his sitter. The expression of the face is determined partly by thoughts within, partly by light without. And it is as if with the touch of a brush a thought could be intercepted as it passed the lips. This is the nearest approach that thought has ever had to material definition. Thought is the architect of her expression, by accuracy of painting it is copied, just as the back of a fan or bracelet is copied—things so material as that. So after all thoughts are not so far away from the material world with which we are in touch; are scarcely less visible than air. The impressionists have rendered air; and would it be too far-fetched to hint that the shadow on the lips almost serves to bridge one province with another, the atmosphere without and that which reigns within the sitter's mind. It is when Sargent's brush hesitates at the lips and eyes, at the threshold of intimate revelation, that we really begin to form an adequate conception of his genius. Yes, of things fleeting, a thought flitting across the face, interrupted gestures—and the mysterious suggestion of conversation hanging fire between the sitter and ourself, Sargent is the master. Sometimes a portrait painter will create a face on canvas, of pleasant expression, which is not like his sitter, and it is as if with every touch he could change the thoughts as he changes the expression in the face he is creating.
PLATE IV.—W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON, ESQ.
(In the collection of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.)