Part 15

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.

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.

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!

A limitation! Yes, but what artist has not limited his endeavors! It is by not trying to do everything that occasionally one succeeds in doing something. And if in painting one chooses to be a recorder of facts rather than a concocter of fiction, why should we grieve! How very little Sargent can concoct anything, even composition, is apparent in his group-portraits of two or three people--the Misses Hunter, for an example. The pattern bothered him, he could not “arrange” the sitters satisfactorily, and, finally having crowded them into the canvas, he painted them as he saw them, with the result that they look crowded. The fresco at Boston is decorative, to be sure, by virtue of its coloring and gilding, but as a composition it will hardly pass muster. It is a curious gathering of jewel-like hues, but it can make small pretense to a satisfactory mural composition. Sargent has never demonstrated great ability in arrangement, and so far as the public knows has never tried for historical composition.

The portrait of the single figure is his greatest success. Placing it upon the canvas calls for no great imagination or change in the model; and the opportunity for good drawing--his strongest technical accomplishment perhaps--is present. How well he draws! His light is in no way remarkable; it lacks subtlety, mystery, and all that cookery of the brush whereby light and shade are distorted and made to suggest the existence of things unseen; but his drawing is so profound that at times it is almost uncanny. It is impossible to separate it from the swift handling of the surface, for he gets the underlying structure and the overlying texture with one and the same stroke. By a twist of the brush he may give drawing, texture, value, hue, all at once. In this respect--his wonderful facility with the brush--he is in the class with Rubens.

It is this latter feature of his work that excites the greatest admiration of his fellow artists. The final result of his handling is to give one the impression of work done easily, in fact, rather improvised than premeditated. But the impression is somewhat misleading. Every stroke is calmly calculated, every touch is coolly designed. If the effect looks labored, the palette-knife is used to clean the canvas and the work is done over again. Infinite pains are taken that infinite pains shall not appear. There is no excitement or feverish haste, however swift the brush may seem to travel. The nimble hand obeys a well-trained mind, and if the work is easily and accurately done, it is not through any burst of inspiration or preternatural facility of the moment, but through long and careful training.

Least of all is there any trickery about it. The painting is just plain painting with ordinary canvases, brushes, and pigments squeezed out of lead tubes. It is the simplest and most direct kind of brushing. Sargent has never been led astray by any of the technical phases or crazes. His method of handling is perhaps Parisian though it harks back to Hals, Velasquez, Goya, Tiepolo, without exactly resembling any one of them. In its fluid quality perhaps it has more affinity with the work of Rubens, though again there is no positive resemblance. It is Sargent’s own way of expressing himself.

That there are defects attending this quality of expressiveness will not be denied, but they are comparatively unimportant. In the simple spreading of wet liquid paint certain results of depth or hue or texture are likely to be sacrificed. Often a profound shadow depth is produced by repeated glazings; thumbing and kneading of pigments on the canvas frequently result in a quality of color that cannot be directly spread with a brush; and, again, there are peculiar effects produced by underbasing that are not obtainable by surface manipulation. Kenyon Cox thinks that Sargent perhaps loses somewhat in textures by his direct method and cites as illustration his flesh painting.

“The sweeps of opaque color laid on with a full brush are apt to give a texture as of drapery, no matter how accurate the particular tints may be; and if we are to have the pleasure of instantaneous execution, we must generally accept it with some diminution of the pleasure derivable from beautiful flesh painting.... Indeed, it may be said that the highest beauty of coloring is always more or less incompatible with too great frankness of procedure and demands a certain reticence and mystery.”[18]

[18] _Ibid._

There may be, probably is, considerable truth in that statement though I cannot for the moment get away from Rubens--one of the most direct painters in all art and yet a great colorist and a splendid painter of textures, especially the texture of flesh. Sargent is no such colorist as Rubens, but the lack is perhaps inherent in the man rather than in the method. At the same time Mr. Cox is right in degree. Perhaps the most engaging quality of flesh coloring, to return to the illustration, can be obtained only by additions and overlayings of paint which give the feeling of the coloring coming up from below to the surface. The direct method will not answer save in the hands of a Rubens.

But the end justifies the means with Sargent. Precision in drawing immediately begins to evaporate when one starts to knead or overlay the surface; and to weaken Sargent’s accuracy in drawing would be to imperil his authority and dispel such a thing as conviction. One cannot imagine it. If he should now deliberately try for subtlety or depth of color or seek to obtain a mysterious or illusory or enamelled surface, his friends in art would immediately declare him in decline and roll their eyes heavenward in despair. But fortunately there is no immediate prospect of such a thing. The painter’s inclination seems well settled, and neither his eye nor his hand has lost its cunning. On the contrary, since he practically abandoned portrait-painting more than a dozen years ago and turned his attention to landscape and effects of direct sunlight, he has been producing the most astonishing pictures of his career. The things that he sees and draws would have been thought as wild as cubist fancies thirty years ago. And yet they are the most positive pronouncements of elemental truths that he has yet put forth.

That does not mean that there is anything weird or queer about these later doings. They are merely appearances of form, color, and light presented with astonishing breadth, force, and simplicity. Sargent has never evidenced any liking for things queer. He is too intelligent for fads and fancies, too sane for mad movements in art. There is not the slightest indication of impressionism, futurism, or cubism in his work. The fashions have never interested him; but style--the best way of presenting a thought or theme--has no doubt been in his thought since boyhood. Perhaps it was his early acquaintance with the works of painters like Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese that led him to base his own style in largeness, simplicity, and directness. He could not have built on a better foundation. Whatever gimcrack or scrollwork bad taste may add at the top, there never yet has been any great art that did not have a plain and firm foundation at the bottom.

And in these days, when all painting seems going to the dogs with new and incomprehensible conventions put forth by first one group of painters and then another, it is a pleasure and a relief to know that there is a large body of the younger men who subscribe to Sargent’s formulas and methods. So far as I know he has never done any teaching nor had any pupils, and yet the influence of his works has been great not only in England but in France and America. For many years his method of handling has been held up for admiration in the schools and every new work of his shown in an exhibition has had its chorus of students to pay it homage. They could not follow a better master.

Sargent, Alexander, Chase, with many other painters who came to the front with the founding of the Society of American Artists, have helped form the new American tradition of the craft. As I have indicated many times in the course of these pages, that tradition is not based in any mere theory or fancy of art but primarily in the calm, cold practice of good workmanship. In other words, the craftsman first; the great artist afterward--if such thing may be. There could be no wiser teaching, no more enduring tradition. With it the painter can rise to what eerie heights he will; without it he forever moves on leaden wings.

It remains to be seen what the present generation will do in art. So many strange idols are set up in art places from day to day that one wonders if faith and purpose shall last. But whatever path the new group may follow or movement it may pursue, it cannot complain that its hands and eyes have not been trained; it cannot say that it inherited no artistic patrimony, was given no schooling, was taught no craftsmanship. The men of 1878 were perhaps handicapped by starting late and having to get their technical education in foreign lands, but the men of to-day have no such excuse. They can be technically well educated on their own native heath; they are practically not handicapped at all.

Will their success be the greater for that? Who can tell? There is always a tearing-down process going on in art almost exactly commensurate with the building-up process, and our country and its art may be on the threshold of such an epoch. Again, who knows? Many a generation has prepared and builded for its succeeding generation--prepared and builded apparently in vain. But whether the period is one of progress or recession it will not be the worse for the presence of competent builders. The tradition of art is now deep-rooted. It will continue to grow and assert itself even though there be no historic sequence in its results. And so the thought is perhaps worth reiterating that the men of 1878 really have builded and prepared, with a will and in a way that will not soon be forgotten.

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.

Repetative chapter headings have been removed.