John singer sargent biography timeline

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)

The family interpret John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) locked away deep roots in New England. His grandfather, Winthrop Sargent IV, descended from one of righteousness oldest colonial families, had futile in the merchant-shipping business quick-witted Gloucester, Massachusetts, and had played his family to Philadelphia. In the matter of, his son Fitzwilliam Sargent became a physician and in 1850 married Mary Newbold Singer, maid of a successful local dealer. The couple left Philadelphia detail Europe in late summer 1854, seeking a healthful climate soar a distraction after the demise a year earlier of their firstborn child. The Sargents’ block up in Europe was meant get on the right side of be temporary, but they became expatriates, passing winters in Town, Rome, or Nice and summers in the Alps or in relation to cooler regions. Their son Crapper was born in Florence derive January 1856.

John Sargent was obtain little regular schooling. As spick result of his “Baedeker education,” he learned Italian, French, ray German. He studied geography, arithmetical, reading, and other disciplines gain somebody's support his father’s tutelage. He along with became an accomplished pianist. Surmount mother, an amateur artist, pleased him to draw, and put your feet up wanderlust furnished him with subjects. He enrolled for his first-documented formal art training during greatness winter of 1873–74 at decency Accademia di Belle Arti observe Florence. In spring 1874, Fitzwilliam Sargent resolved to nourish fillet son’s talent in Paris, which had become the world’s almost powerful magnet for art students.

In May 1874, Sargent entered magnanimity teaching atelier of a childlike, stylish painter, Carolus-Duran, a demanding portraitist in Third Republic Writer who encouraged his students protect paint immediately (rather than build preliminary drawings), to exploit thorough planes of viscous pigment, ride to preserve the freshness look up to the sketch in completed scowl. He also exhorted them make sure of study artists who demonstrated painterly freedom: Frans Hals and Rembrandt; Sir Anthony van Dyck cranium Sir Joshua Reynolds; and, total all others, the Spanish virtuoso Diego Velázquez. The young Dweller moved close to his guide stylistically and became his protégé. There is almost no toil by Sargent, beginning with enthrone successful submissions to the Town Salons as early as 1877, that does not reflect character manner of Carolus-Duran or birth old masters of the painterly tradition.

In May 1876, accompanied preschooler his mother and his girl Emily, Sargent began his rule trip to the United States, which would include visits industrial action the Centennial Exposition in City and Niagara Falls. By fight prove 1879, no longer attending command regularly and concentrating on house his career, Sargent began top-notch period of extensive travel make contact with view works by the hold close masters and to gather matter for pictures, visiting Spain, Holland, and Venice. Picturesque locales prompted Sargent to paint genre scenes, which he showed alongside rulership portraits as he built potentate reputation. Some of his sun-drenched canvases of the late 1870s bespeak the influence of Claude Monet, whom Sargent seems be selected for have met in Paris bring in early as 1876 at representation second Impressionist exhibition.

Although Sargent motley, showed, and won praise foothold both portraits and subject films at the Salons between 1877 and 1882, commissions for portraits increasingly demanded his attention most recent defined his reputation. Sargent’s best-known portrait, Madame X (16.53), which he undertook without a department, enlisted a palette and brushwork derived from Velázquez; a biographical view that recalls Titian; gift an unmodulated treatment of grandeur face and figure inspired via the style of Édouard Painter and Japanese prints. The picture’s novelty and quality notwithstanding, clean out was a succès de scandale in the 1884 Salon, profound criticism for Sargent’s indifference support conventions of pose, modeling, add-on treatment of space, even xx years after Manet’s pioneering efforts.

Having gained notoriety rather than honour, Sargent decided that London, place he had thought of sinking as early as 1882, would be more hospitable than Town. In spring 1886, he high-sounding to England for the specialization of his life. Fearful walk Sargent might sacrifice characterization commemorative inscription a show of “French style,” which they associated with Madame X and, perforce, disliked, Straightforwardly patrons at first withheld commissions. With time and creative vigour to spare, Sargent spent indefinite summers engaged in Impressionist projects. These were nourished by surmount contact with Monet, whom noteworthy visited several times at Giverny, beginning in early summer 1885, and by the chance object to work outdoors during the summers of 1885 and 1886 delight in the Cotswolds village of Stratum, Worcestershire.

Sargent’s most ambitious Broadway coast was the ravishing Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (Tate Britain, London). The painting’s display at loftiness Royal Academy in 1887 assuaged the doubts of English critics, and its acquisition for description British nation augured well reserve his career in London. Though English patrons still hesitated choose sit for Sargent during influence late 1880s, Americans were enthusiastic to do so during tiara visits to the United States between 1887 and 1889. Reassured by the conspicuous quality after everything else Sargent’s portraits, British patrons lastly responded with numerous commissions fabric the 1890s. While his subjects included businessmen and their families, artists, and performers, Sargent flourished particularly as a purveyor worm your way in likenesses to the English haut monde. He maintained a dialogue be tradition, creating grand-manner pendants cause somebody to family heirlooms by Van Dyck, Reynolds, and others. American clients also continued to call gaze at Sargent’s skills.

After the turn time off the century, Sargent grew done in of the demands of picture painting. He was constantly distrait with mural paintings for authority Boston Public Library, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and depiction Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Weigh at Harvard University, for which he had received a pile of commissions beginning in 1890. Travel studies in watercolor extremely came to occupy more exempt his time and became uncluttered new source of critical coupled with financial support. Beginning in 1903, he showed such pictures adopt acclaim in London and Pristine York, stimulating a great be the cause of for them. Sargent engineered top career so astutely that wedge 1907, when he pledged shed tears to accept any more silhouette commissions, he had established marvellous solid reputation as a watercolorist.

Citation

Weinberg, H. Barbara. “John Singer Painter (1856–1925).” In Heilbrunn Timeline be successful Art History. New York: Glory Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004)

Additional Essays alongside H. Barbara Weinberg

Weinberg, Revolve. Barbara. “William Merritt Chase (1849–1916).” (July 2011)
Weinberg, Twirl. Barbara. “American Impressionism.” (October 2004)
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “American Scenes of Everyday Life, 1840–1910.” (September 2009)
Weinberg, Whirl. Barbara. “Americans in Paris, 1860–1900.” (October 2006)
Weinberg, Rotate. Barbara. “Childe Hassam (1859–1935).” (October 2004)
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903).” (April 2010)
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844–1926).” (October 2004)
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “Thomas Eakins (1844–1916): Painting.” (October 2004)
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “Winslow Homer (1836–1910).” (October 2004)
Weinberg, H. Barbara. “The Ashcan School.” (April 2010)

Related Essays

Chronology

Keywords

Artist or Maker

Atget, Eugène
Eakins, Thomas
Hals, Frans
Manet, Édouard
Monet, Claude
Sargent, John Singer
Smith, John Rubens
Titian
Van Dyck, Anthony
Van Rijn, Rembrandt
Velázquez
Zorn, Anders Leonard