Henry James once said, “There is no greater work of art than a great portrait.” While there is no denying the potential of beauty in portraiture, it is an art form based around the distortion of reality. According to Debrah Brehmer, a portrait is an attempt to “[manufacture] history,” capturing a single, perceived moment and using it to explain an entire personality. While this imprint of a person allows an artist to exaggerate certain traits in his attempt to portray someone as he wishes that person was, ultimately the artist will always produce a lie.
The notion of a “realistic portrait” is a paradox which Sargent embraces and in doing so is able to overcome. Rather than try to capture reality as it actually is, Sargent settles for capturing reality as he sees it knowing that inevitably, his representation of it will be biased. By embracing the principles of impressionism, Sargent diverges from strict realism and instead of trying to capture the reality of a persona, he captures an impression of that person in the moment. In sacrificing the accurateness of his work, his portraits transcend portraiture and turn into an art form of their own.
Sargent noticed that his own reality changed based on the time of day
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
and depending on his mood and so in his work Carnation, Lilly, Lilly, Rose, Sargent would undergo a daily ritual to keep these external factors constant. According to Sarah Churchwell, prior to sitting at the canvas, each evening Sargent would play tennis to enter a state of euphoria from the endorphins and adrenaline. Then by the evening light, he would position his canvas in the exact same spot and focus on the exact same flowers to create a backdrop. He then positioned his two
Example of a Japanese Print
subjects and began to paint. This process had to be repeated over the course of several weeks since the desired light only maintained itself for twenty five minutes. A similar technique was used by Monet, however rather than losing form in favor of “paint, color, and light,” Sargent used more of a realistic style, mirroring the form used in Japanese prints.
Japanese prints often allude to man’s intimate relationship with nature, a theme that Sargent embraces in his work Carnation, Lilly, Lilly, Rose. By painting a dual portrait of two young girls in a natural setting as opposed to his studio, Sargent suggests that man’s place is in nature instead of in his artificial buildings. Given the societal happenings of the time, particularly the commercial revolution with the rise of big business, Carnation, Lilly, Lilly, Rose can be seen as a backlash response to man’s abuse of nature for his own selfish gains.
I appreciate how you examined Sargent’s technique of recreating the atmosphere and his emotions every time he painted. While I focused on the way “Every Portrait Tells a Lie” explains that artists influence their work with their emotions and perception (though only a glance) of the subject, I never considered the many precautions Sargent took to be as objective as possible in his art while maintaining that “reality” doesn’t quite exist to artists. It’s fascinating how he tried so hard to be impressionistic, but realistic, and inevitably had his persona leak through anyway. It adds depth to his art by using remarkable simplicity.
Your explanation of Debra Brehmer’s article was really detailed and expressed really well. Like Debra and you said, portraits are subjective because the artist will always produce a painting of something what he or she sees in that model. I like when you said, “instead of trying to capture the reality of a persona, he captures an impression of that person in that moment”. People who look at Sargent’s portraits can definitely see that the models in the paintings are not posed as what most people look for. They have different facial expressions and their poses are very natural or in a relaxed sort of way.
This is why so many people criticized Sargent for his painting, because of how he represented the people he painted – for who they are and what they did in “that” moment.
I agree that portraiture is very subjective and you are spot on about Sargent’s techniques. I also like how you took time to talk about Sargent’s love for Japanese prints. I feel it’s important that an artist, with mostly European upbringing, has such appreciation for Asian cultures.