Strapless

by Deborah Davis

  In her typical fashion, Mary never sat still while they were in America. The Sargents docked in Jersey City in May, proceeded to Philadelphia, went on to Newport, then Montreal and Niagara Falls. The weather was unbearably hot that summer, too hot for so much traveling. Though tempers among his relatives might have been short during the four months the Sargents moved from place to place, everywhere he went, John Sargent charmed and impressed with his formal, but quaintly endearing, ways. He struck his relatives as being far more European than American.

  The biographer Stanley Olson suggests that Sargent’s trip was liberating for him artistically. While at sea, he became fascinated with the idea of distorted perspective and examined different ways of representing it. He treated the ocean as new subject matter—though he had lived near the water in St.-Énogat, he never painted it until he went on this voyage—presumably inspired by a dramatic storm during the crossing. Sargent believed that his trip to America represented a new beginning for him, even a rebirth. The next time his name appeared in an art catalogue—to which he had supplied the accompanying biographical information himself—he was identified as “Sargent (John S.) né Philadelphia,” born in Philadelphia. In his mind, his birthplace was America.

  Sargent returned to Paris in the fall. He applied his newly acquired sense of perspective in a painting of a popular Paris musical group, Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d’Hiver. Emily told Vernon Lee that her brother worked “like a dog from morning till night.” He was consumed with creating the perfect painting for his first Salon submission.

  The French were passionate about art, and they approached paintings with the same enthusiasm they would demonstrate for movies in the next century. The annual Salon, like the Cannes Film Festival today, was a monumental event, with all the attendant publicity and press coverage. It was a place to sell paintings and launch reputations. Art dealers, critics, and buyers could take the artistic pulse of Paris simply by noting which paintings commanded the most attention and who was looking at them. The Salon was a giant entertainment, however, not an academic experience, and so it was popular with nonprofessional audiences as well. During the show’s six-to-eight-week run, hundreds of thousands of people would crowd into the exhibition hall, the Palais de l’Industrie, on the Right Bank. Attendance would spike dramatically on Sundays, when admission was free, reaching numbers as high as fifty thousand.

  The Palais de l’Industrie was enormous, with walls that rose to meet impossibly high ceilings. It could hold up to seven thousand works of art, including paintings and sculptures, which were wedged into every available space. The Salon was so big that even the most ambitious and energetic visitor could not see everything in one day.

  Every year, a few artists would emerge as Salon favorites among the thousands who exhibited. Their works instantly became dominant images in popular culture: reproduced on the covers of newspapers and journals, copied onto posters, cards, and candy boxes, even reenacted onstage in dramatic tableaux vivants. Most important, these lucky artists would be bombarded with commissions, so they could actually make a living in art. Although the chance of being plucked out of obscurity in this manner was extremely rare, young artists held out hopes that they might achieve instant success. These aspirants as well as established artists would subject themselves annually to the arduous process of submitting a painting to the jury.

  On Submission Day, anxious artists would transport their works to the Palais de l’Industrie, struggling to keep their top hats on while wrestling with often oversized masterpieces. They would have been a funny and familiar sight to Parisians, who knew they were placing their art, and their egos, in the hands of the forty-member Salon jury.

  The procedure for creating the jury should have been democratic, since the judges were elected by artists who were veterans of the Salon. But as with most elections, it was frequently a popularity contest. The veteran artists would vote for their own patrons and teachers, hoping to gain from them a good word on the final selection day. Each painting submitted would be reviewed by all forty judges, who determined whether an entry would be accepted. The fortunate artists whose works had won a medal or an Honorable Mention at previous Salons bypassed this process: their paintings were accepted automatically. The judges also determined where in the Salon each accepted painting would hang, as placement was everything. The paintings that excited the jury were guaranteed visibility. The less impressive ones were “skyed,” or hung close to the ceiling. Many artists were condemned to anonymity simply because their works were difficult or impossible to see at the Salon.

  The Salon opening, always on May 1, was tense and exhausting for artists. But it was one of the most important and anticipated days on every fashionable Parisian’s social calendar. It was the place to see and be seen. The festivities began with the exclusive vernissage on Varnishing Day, the morning before the official opening. Ostensibly a private preview for artists, critics, journalists, and other members of the art world, this intensely social event attracted celebrities of all kinds. Artists stood on ladders and attempted to apply varnish to their paintings so the glossy finish would be perfect at the next day’s opening, while trend-setting Parisians crowded around them, vying to identify the next rising star.

  Edward Simmons, the American artist who was so captivated by Amélie Gautreau, described Varnishing Day as “the next excitement. Everyone of importance and all fashion turned out. New York society cannot conceive of what a place the fine arts have in France. . . . Inside, great masses of people go through the galleries together, with some such person as Sarah Bernhardt at the head and the lesser following.” Newspapers reported on the famous people who climbed the Salon steps. Great beauties always attracted attention. At one Salon opening, a New York Herald reporter witnessed the arrival of Amélie Gautreau: “Later on came Mme. [Gautreau], who does things in the way of art, but always distracts the artistic eye when she appears. She strolled slowly through the rooms, finding more interest in admiring the throngs than in the pictures.” Amélie was not the only Parisian who came to the Salon to be seen. Gyp, a satirist who typically lampooned socialites, wrote a short play that featured two characters exchanging dialogue about the Salon: “Then which paintings are you looking for?” asked one. “None!” answered the other. “[The] paintings are all the same to us!”

  After spending a few hours at the Salon, spectators would walk the short distance to Ledoyen, a restaurant located in a park setting at the end of the Champs-Élysées. One of the oldest and most elegant dining establishments in Paris, it was rumored to have been where Napoleon met Josephine. Every year, the restaurant staged a special luncheon on Varnishing Day, setting up a tent to accommodate the hordes of artists and admirers who crowded into the gardens surrounding the dining rooms. A constant line of people waited for tables, and waiters were in such short supply that it was not unusual for impatient artists to serve themselves bread. Ledoyen was famous for its food, but most of the people who came on Varnishing Day were more interested in celebrity-spotting than eating. If they waited long enough, the artist of the moment was sure to make an appearance.

  Seeking to make his mark at the 1877 Salon, Sargent settled on his first submission. He had started a portrait of a young woman, Frances (Fanny) Watts, and it seemed to offer possibilities. Fanny was a childhood friend who traveled the expatriate circuit, like Sargent’s friends Ben del Castillo and Vernon Lee. Sargent may have had a crush on Fanny, and this may have motivated him to paint her in the first place. But if he had these feelings, he did not pursue them. Fanny’s relatives believed that Mary Sargent discouraged a romance between the two because she had higher marital aspirations for her son.

  Sargent finished the portrait in March of the year. A proud Dr. Sargent wrote about what he called his son’s “opus magnum” in a letter to his sister in America: “To my uneducated eye it is—particularly if one considers that it is his first attempt at a serious, finished work—a very creditable and promising one.” Th
e portrait was especially ambitious in capturing motion and repose at the same time: Fanny is caught in the moment between sitting and standing, her body subtly poised to move.

  The educated eyes agreed with Dr. Sargent. The Salon judges accepted the painting for the upcoming Salon, and expressed their enthusiasm for this work by an unknown twenty-one-year-old by hanging it where the crowds could see it. Critics responded favorably: Henri Houssaye, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, for example, called it “un charmant portrait”—exactly the kind of notice a young artist wanted.

  With this Salon victory barely behind him, Sargent was already planning his next submission. Having shown a portrait, for the next exhibition he would submit a landscape to demonstrate his versatility. He spent the next several months on vacation with his parents in Brittany, painting the unusual oyster beds in the fishing village of Cancale. He was fascinated by the beaches, whose strange, shimmering light was intensified by the contrasting blues of ocean and sky. In adding a group of local women and children to the landscape, Sargent brought classic Breton imagery as well as color to the canvas.

  When Sargent returned to Paris in October, Carolus-Duran, perhaps wanting to profit from his protégé’s budding reputation, invited him to collaborate on a ceiling decoration for the Palais du Luxembourg. Carolus-Duran liked to have his most talented student by his side, and he treated Sargent more like an assistant than a pupil. Gloria Mariae Medicis was to be a historically themed painting with dozens of faces in it. On close inspection, two of these faces are familiar. They are Carolus-Duran and Sargent. The teacher painted his pupil’s face on one of his figures, and Sargent painted Carolus-Duran’s head leaning over a balcony.

  Sargent continued working on his Breton painting, which he called Oyster Gatherers at Cancale. He completed two versions, and sent one to New York for the Society of American Artists’ first exhibition and the other to the Salon jury. The painting was accepted in Paris. When the 1878 Salon opened, the critics confirmed what they had suspected the year before: John Sargent was a talent to watch.

  Soon after the Salon, Sargent asked Carolus-Duran to sit for him. The decision to paint his teacher was audacious and complicated on Sargent’s part. It seemed to indicate that he wanted to pay homage to his mentor—painting the maestro would be the best way to demonstrate the lessons he had learned at the atelier. But Sargent had another, more practical agenda. Carolus-Duran was a celebrity who was always in the news, and his image, especially as painted by his prize student, would draw attention and publicity.

  John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Carolus-Duran, 1879

  Sargent’s teacher, a celebrity in Belle Époque Paris, was the subject of one of his early Salon portraits. (Oil on canvas. 1955.14. © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts)

  Sargent’s instincts were correct. His Portrait of Carolus-Duran was a hit at the 1879 Salon, counted among the exhibition’s most popular and acclaimed paintings. Critics hailed it as “one of the best portraits of the Salon,” and a journalist said of Sargent, “No American has ever painted with such quiet mastery.” The jury awarded it an Honorable Mention, a prize that carried the added benefit of guaranteed acceptance for Sargent’s next entry to the 1880 Salon.

  Critics were quick to spot an interesting angle in the story. With his portrait of his teacher, Sargent proved that he was a better painter, or at least a more innovative one, than his “cher maître,” as he called Carolus-Duran in the dedication painted at the top of the canvas. Carolus-Duran had won the most important prize at the 1879 Salon for his Portrait of the Vicomtesse de V. Critics who found Sargent’s work more exciting were very happy to say so, because they hoped to provoke a rivalry between the two men. Carolus-Duran had made enemies over the course of his career by thumbing his nose at the establishment. The New York Times described him as someone who was “cordially liked or cordially detested by each member of the art colony in Paris.”

  The attention Sargent received carried him to a much higher position in the art world. Lured to the portrait by the irresistible bait of its subject, the press recognized his talent and spread the word. The painting appeared on the front page of the popular newspaper L’Illustration—a great honor for a new artist—and inspired whimsical caricatures in such publications as Le Journal Amusant.

  Sargent’s career was off to a smashing start. Everyone from art lover to aristocrat was talking about the dynamic newcomer. Moreover, people were willing to pay for his work. Dr. Sargent boasted that his son received no fewer than six commissions as a result of the 1879 Salon. Édouard Pailleron, a French poet and playwright, engaged Sargent to paint separate portraits of himself, his wife, and their children. The Paillerons were excellent social contacts, members of the Parisian intellectual elite.

  Sargent’s portrait of Madame Pailleron turned out well enough for him to exhibit it at the next year’s Salon, along with Fumée d’Ambre Gris, a painting inspired by a recent trip to Morocco. Ambre gris, or ambergris, a resinlike substance derived from whale sperm, is said to act as an aphrodisiac when inhaled or ingested. Sargent’s painting shows a magnificently dressed Arab woman holding her veil over an incense burner. She is perfuming herself with, and presumably inhaling, the burning ambergris, surrendering with every breath to the intoxicating power of the fumes. Henry James called the painting “exquisite” and “radiant,” and other Salon critics predicted that this “perfect piece of painting” might win a medal. Sargent demonstrated a remarkable technical achievement with the work, which is executed almost entirely in subtle shades of white. But Fumée d’Ambre Gris also presents an intriguing metaphor for Sargent’s state of mind. Like the mysterious figure in the painting, he was opening his eyes to the idea of intoxication, surrender, possibly even seduction.

  Ramón Subercaseaux, a Chilean diplomat who was himself a painter, saw Madame Édouard Pailleron and Fumée d’Ambre Gris and immediately sought out Sargent to paint his wife, a beautiful socialite. The resulting portrait won Sargent a second-place medal at the 1881 Salon. He was delighted, for this award elevated him to the permanent status of hors concours. He could now bypass the Salon jury every year.

  John Singer Sargent, Fumée d’Ambre Gris, 1880

  The striking depiction of a mysterious woman inhaling the fumes from an incense burner points to Sargent’s fascination with the exotic, in art and in his life. (Oil on canvas. 1955.15. © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts)

  Sargent’s new status won him new social connections. The casual art-student dinners he had been accustomed to gave way to formal receptions. He was invited to salons and country estates by wealthy clients who wanted to be painted in their own homes. He not only understood their tastes but also came to share them: he appreciated the good life and aspired to live in the same world as the privileged people he painted.

  Sargent in Paris. Handsome, confident, and optimistic, he set out to make a name for himself in the highest artistic and intellectual circles. (Private collection)

  This is not to say that Sargent felt perfectly comfortable in high society. There were moments during the early years of his social ascent when he felt like an outsider, and he expressed that in his art from time to time. One of the works he displayed in his studio was a copy he had made of Don Antonio el Inglés, Velázquez’s portrait of a dwarf courtier with a dog. According to a tradition in art and literature, the dwarf represented the artistic outsider, his physical form matching his inner torment. Sargent must have experienced some feelings of exclusion as he ventured into society.

  Aspiring artists now looked to Sargent as their idol; they dreamed of achieving his success, dissecting his techniques, and trading stories about him just as they once discussed Carolus-Duran. Everyone knew about Sargent’s idiosyncrasies in the studio. He talked constantly while he painted. He chain-smoked cigarettes and cigars, although, as his friends teased him, he didn’t inhale properly, “denying himself the true purpose of ‘Princess Nicotine.�
�” Unlike many artists, he never wore a smock to protect himself from his paints. And as one model recalled, he kept his pockets filled with pieces of bread when he sketched, and would roll the soft part into little balls to use as erasers.

  Sargent began each portrait with the same ritual, placing his canvas next to his sitter so they could share the same light. He would prepare his palette, then step back, fix an image in his mind, and run forward to the canvas to paint it. He would be in constant motion throughout a session, walking what he estimated was four miles a day to and from his easel.

  When he was very excited, Sargent would rush at his canvas with his brush poised for attack, yelling, “Demons, demons, demons!” When he was particularly angry or frustrated, he expressed these feelings with “Damn,” the only curse he allowed himself. He once had the expletive inscribed on a rubber stamp so he could have the satisfaction of pounding it on a piece of paper. Far from being offended, his subjects were amused by his outbursts, Sargent seemed so buttoned-up and formal in every other way.

  His artistic gifts were not restricted to his canvas. Several experts believed he would have been a first-rate pianist had he pursued music instead of art. The composer Charles Martin Loeffler marveled at his quick mind and his ability to play by ear. Sargent loved listening to his favorite composers, from the celebrated Richard Wagner to the lesser-known Gabriel Fauré, and when he performed music himself, he had such an intuitive understanding that he could bring any piece to life the first time he played it. “If he didn’t play all the right notes,” Loeffler observed, “he played the right wrong notes . . . a sign of true musicianship.”