(P/B) THE AGE OF ELEGANCE

Παρουσίαση

In 1926, the year after the death of John Singer Sargent, the famous critic Roger Fry wrote: 'Sargent's figure seemed to loom in colossal proportions over the social history of the last forty years.' Whether Sargent would have seen himself as a social chronicler is another question. He painted because he wanted to and he painted society-portraits because they paid. He quickly earned a reputation as a fashionable painter who knew all the right people and was accorded their respect.
Luckily for Sargent the second half of the nineteenth century lent itself to being painted. The figures in Sargent's portraits all have a dignity and a sense of elegance, whether they are glamorous heiresses or brooding industrialists. It is easy to imagine these figures spending their nights at the opera or theatre and their days receiving callers or driving out in their carriages. This is the era recorded on paper by Henry James. Extracts from his novels convey the same sense of elegant grandeur.
Although this book concentrates simply on Sargent's portrait work, it is only one side of his oeuvre. When he died, a childhood friend suggested that the conclusion of a would-be biographer should be 'He painted'. It would have made a fitting obituary for a man who had devoted his life to art. (From the publisher)