Portrait of Madame X by John Singer
Sargent
Interpretation of Controversial
Society Portrait
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Portrait of Madame X by John Singer
Sargent
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Portrait of Madame X (1884)Contents • Description Name: Portrait of Madame X (Madame Pierre
Gautreau) (1884)
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ART EVALUATION
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One of the best portrait artists of his day, revered for his extraordinary natural talent, John Singer Sargent was the last great practitioner of what was already a dying art. Within a decade of his death, photography would set new standards in portraiture, which hitherto had been the domain of the great realists including, Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904), Wilhelm Leibl (1844-1900) Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), John Millais (1829-96), William Orpen (1878-1931), and Sargent himself. Nevertheless, Sargent enjoyed a highly successful career as a society portraitist - mostly in Paris and London, where he spent most of his life. His early works - all painted in Paris - included well-known portraits of Rosina Ferrara (Head of a Capri Girl) (1878, Berger Collection); Madame Edouard Pailleron (1879, Corcoran Gallery of Art); Carmela Bertagna (1879, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio); Madame Ramon Subercaseaux (1881, Private Collection); Charlotte Louise Burckhardt (Lady with the Rose) (1882, Metropolitan Museum); and Mrs Henry White (1883, Corcoran Gallery of Art), several of which he exhibited at the official Salon, to admiring reviews. His Paris period also saw the creation of his three greatest modern paintings - the famous Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (The Boit Sisters) (1882, Museum of Fine Art, Boston); El Jaleo (1882, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston); and Portrait of Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) (1884). All three reveal the influence of Spanish painting on Sargent's modern art, especially that of Velazquez (1599–1660). Analysis of Portrait of Madame X by John Singer SargentPortrait of Madame X is a painting of Virginie Amelie Avegno Gautreau (1859-1915), the New Orleans-born wife of Pierre Gautreau, a wealthy businessman. At the time, she was a well-known Parisian socialite named, noted for her beauty, who occasionally posed as a model for eminent artists. Exhibited at the 1884 Salon, the painting was Sargent's idea and was intended to boost his career as a society portraitist (he was 28 at the time). But instead, its daring and sensual content - in particular, its off-the-shoulder dress strap - caused a scandal, and actually led to a loss of commissions. As a result, the artist left Paris and settled in London. Sargent himself considered Madame X to be one of his greatest portrait paintings and kept it displayed in his studio until he sold it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1916, not long after Gautreau's death. |
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The portrait took Sargent more than a year to finish, due to what he described as "the unpaintable beauty and hopeless laziness of Madame Gautreau". Most of the preparatory drawing and sketching was done at Gautreau's country estate in Brittany, where Sargent completed more than thirty oil, watercolour and pencil studies. For the portrait itself, he settled on a pose (taken in part from his evocative El Jaleo) that accentuated her distinctive profile, a low-cut dress with a shoulder strap provocatively hanging off her right shoulder, and a colour scheme that highlighted the 'aristocratic' whiteness of her skin. The title he chose - Portrait of Madame *** (subsequently changed to Portrait of Madame X) - was intended to conceal Gautreau's true identity, while the large canvas made the work conspicuous enough to command attention on the crowded walls of the Salon. Alas, the all-too noticeable painting caused a scandal when it was shown at the 1884 Salon. The public were shocked by the low-cut style of Gautreau's dress, outraged by its suggestive dress-strap, and repelled by the awkward twisted pose of her right arm. Worse, her identity soon became common knowledge. The Gautreau family felt humiliated and begged Sargent to withdraw the picture. Sargent refused, although later he overpainted the shoulder strap to make it appear properly fastened. Although Sargent left Paris greatly chastened by his experience, his career went from strength to strength, both in America and England. As for Madame Gautreau, in 1891 she was painted once more, by the academic portraitist Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois (1852-1923) - this time in a wispy but conventional, white, daytime dress, which was well-received by critics and public. In 1898 she posed yet again - this time in an oyster coloured satin evening dress - for Antonio de La Gandara (1861-1917), whose portrait remained her favourite.
Explanation of Other Modern Portraits • Portrait
of Madame Moitessier (1856) National Gallery, London. • Young
Italian Woman Leaning on her Elbow (1900) J. Paul Getty Museum. • Boy
with a Pipe (Garcon a la Pipe) (1905) Private Collection. • Portrait
of Gertrude Stein (1906) Metropolitan Museum. • Portrait
of Juan Gris (1915) Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
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• For the meaning of other 19th century portraits, see: Homepage.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART EDUCATION |
