I. Lord Ribblesdale Frontispiece
In the collection of Lord Ribblesdale
II. La Carmencita 14
In the Luxembourg, Paris
III. Ellen Terry as "Lady Macbeth" 24
In the National Gallery, Millbank
IV. W. Graham Robertson, Esq. 34
In the collection of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.
V. Carnation Lily, Lily Rose 40
In the National Gallery, Millbank
VI. Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Lady Tennant 50
In the collection of the Hon. Percy Wyndham
VII. The Misses Wertheimer 60
In the collection of Asher Wertheimer, Esq.
VIII. Mrs. A. L. Langman 70
In the collection of A. L. Langman, Esq., C.M.G.
[Illustration]
I
Was there ever a more romantic time than our own, or a people who took
everything more matter-of-factly? The paintings of a period contain all
its enthusiasms and illusions. We remember the eighteenth century--at
least in England--by Reynolds' and Gainsborough's art, the seventeenth
century by Van Dyck's; and when we remember the eighteenth century in
France, it is to think of Watteau, who expressed what his world,
drifting towards disaster, cared about--an illusion of a never-ending
summer's day. These names are expressive of their times, and Sargent's
art, with disillusioned outlook, mirrors an obvious aspect of English
life to-day. Above all others he has taken his world as it is, with the
delight in life, in its everyday appearance, with which the
representative artists of any period have been gifted.
Perhaps the next generation will feel that it owes more to him
than to any painter of this time. For the ephemeralities of the
moment in costume and fashion are the blossoms in which life seeks
expression--whatever its fruit. It is agreed that everything is
expression, from a spring bud bursting to a ribbon worn for a moment
against a woman's hair. And who deals with the surface of life deals
with realities, for the rest is guess-work.
Often enough this content to take the world as it is may result in
things which do not charm us, and perhaps Sargent has never been one of
those as fastidious in selection as in delineation. Sometimes he gives
his sitters away--for there are traits in human nature, belief in
thevery existence of which we are always anxious to forego. Nothing
escapes him that is written in the face. Yet he is not cynical, but man
of the world, the felicity of living in a world where everything is
charming being only for those with the gift to live in one of their own
making.
The side of life which he expresses is that in which time seems given
over wholly to social amenities, long afternoons spent in pleasant
intercourse, hours well ordered and protected, so that the most fragrant
qualities in human nature can if they will spring to life. We almost
hear the teacups in the other room, and none of his sitters seem really
alone. We feel they have left the life to which they belong to sit to
the artist but only for an hour or so. The social world to which they
belong will absorb them again. This world Sargent paints. Even in many
of his single figures we are conscious always of its existence in the
background. In portrait after portrait there is scarcely a suggestion of
self-consciousness--but the man or the woman just at the moment of
posing, as if environed still in an atmosphere of their own, and of the
world from which they have withdrawn for the sitting. For it is
Sargent's gift to remove the impression that his sitter has posed, that
the dress was arranged, and his gift to arrest his sitter's habitual
gesture, the impression of sparkling stones, almost the clink of bangles
at the wrist in expression of the moment. Most unjustly was it said that
he could not paint pretty women. It would appear to be within his power
to paint almost anything that has its existence in fact, and if in a
matter-of-fact way, what more to the point if the facts are so beautiful
that fancy itself would have to defer?
[Illustration: PLATE II.--LA CARMENCITA
(In the Luxembourg, Paris)
Painting of a Spanish Dancer. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in
1891; acquired by the French Government.]
Supreme is the art of Sargent in its appreciation of those pleasures
which would almost seem for art alone: pearls upon the colour of flesh;
slight transitions of colour charged with great secrets of beauty;
pearls painted as they would be regarded by a lover, as ten thousand
times more beautiful than if they were lying in a box. And the touches
of the brush--for Sargent shows every touch--breathe sympathy with every
change of colour as the chain of pearls falls first across white silk
and then across black velvet, and the little globes take to themselves
new variations. A fan is opened, and upon the ivory sticks the light
like silver trembles, a web of colour is spun across upon the open ribs;
a book is half-open, it may be a Bradshaw, but we will believe it is a
book of old verse, for everything that comes into the picture, the
particular picture of which I am thinking, comes into a charmed circle.
There are people for whom the opulent world of Sargent's art is their
everyday world--whose life competes with the splendour of day-dreams.
How essentially romantic--although so matter-of-fact--must be the art
that leaves us with this impression! To be matter-of-fact is, we see,
far from being unromantic; the reverse indeed is true, for with our face
turned from the world romance vanishes.