John Singer Sargent

As ever this blog strives night and day, well, the odd evening and part of an occasional day, to provide you with witty, intelligent and insightful posts - and whoever just muttered 'that'll be the day' may be told to stay behind and read the last five years' worth!  Where was I?  Ah, yes, the other day whilst lunching with friends we were chatting about exhibitions we had seen and I expressed my disappointment, as I told you here, with the recent Degas exhibition.  However, running my mind past some of the other exhibitions I have been to - not that many, actually - I still think it was the one featuring John Singer Sargent which had the greatest impact - not least, I suppose, because I knew virtualy nothing of him until then.  What I admire as much as anything about his artistry is the very wide range of his work - portraits, landscapes, interiors, large works, small works, classical style or modern he tried them and succeeded with all of them.  So, from time to time, as a change from my 'Klee Days', I will post up some of his pictures.  This, perhaps, is his most famous, or at least, notorious painting, the fabled: Madame X (or Madame Pierre Gautreau as she was identified).

It is deliberately provocative, and also rather brave because the lady is no beauty, particularly in profile, but my God, she's attractive and sexy - the lack of a necklace  at her throat makes her look almost naked!

Here is another picture to show the breadth of his abilities.  An interior architectural painting executed with immaculate skill.  Perhaps he cheats a little with the light on the ceilings in the portico to the right but, hey, who's checking?  There is a terrific sense to the viewer that you could stroll through the painting and out into the gardens and the Italian sunshine:

You can view more of his work here:

http://www.johnsingersargent.org/

 

Comments

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