Full Description
Sargent's enduring popularity has prompted a thoughtful reappraisal by prominent art critic Carter Ratcliff, who shows us the surprising breadth of the artist's work. Never before has a book so thoroughly represented that variety: 110 lavish color plates and more than 200 halftones convey the brilliance of his portraits, the exuberance of his watercolors, the stately pomp of his murals. It is perhaps the watercolors that are most exciting to contemporary eyes -- bold, spontaneous, and vividly hued, they have a breathtaking immediacy. Born in Florence in 1856 to American parents, Sargent spent a nomadic childhood before going to Paris to study painting. He learned quickly and by the 1880s had begun the steady climb to fame that ultimately placed him at the center of his world, with a circle of friends and rivals that included Henry James, Claude Monet, and James McNeill Whistler. When Sargent died in 1925, a childhood companion wrote in her memorial that "the summing up of a would-be biographer must, I think be: He painted." It is the strikingly beautiful results of that lifelong devotion to his art that glow throughout the pages of this incomparable book.
Contents
PROLOGUE: Point of View 9 I. A Nomadic Sort of Life 21 II. A Student in Paris 35 III. Independence 49 IV. The Scandalous Madame X 79 V. Starting Over in England 91 VI. A Critical Success 107 VII. Patriarchs and Pagans--The Boston Murals 127 VIII. Master of the Modern Portrait 157 IX. "Sargentolatry" and a Reluctant Idol 181 X. The End of an Era 197 EPILOGUE: The Sitwell Portrait 223 NOTES 229 APPENDIX: Selected Writings on Sargent 233 CHRONOLOGY 243 BIBLIOGRAPHY 247 INDEX 251 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 256
