July 15: John Singer Sargent and the Sea

Attended the superb exhibit at the Royal Academy of Art, “Sargent and the Sea.” John Singer Sargent is surely one of the greatest draughtsmen of all time — up there with Raphael and Ingres — in being to capture proportion and the feeling of what figures or things look like. This show gives plenty of opportunity to drool over his astonishing drawings, notably of sailors or proletariat figures doing their work around the sea.

In his letters at the show at the RAA in April, Van Gogh wrote of wrestling with the drawing of figures, much in the same way that another great painter did, Turner. With both these painters the glory of monumental landscapes whirls around the stilted inglorious shapes of humans. When I look at the simplest pencil sketch of a Sargent figure I see the work of an artist who intuitively understood, or was taught, about how the human beings  exist unconsciously in space. Every Sargent drawing, whether it’s the hull of a fishing skiff or naval rope and tackle or a woman holding a baskets of oysters and looking out to see, evokes the essence of Eros; partly because everything he draws in some way so faithfully represents our knowledge of the thing in real life, but also because the product of his talent, graphite lines and shadings pushed around on paper, are so well-realized that I am at once astonished and attracted — like what happens in the presence of a truly beautiful thing — to the point of blushing.

And then there is his ability with oils and brush, another story altogether, much of the same. Though I’ve often wished he hadn’t spent so many years painting society folk commissions, I now see why he was so well suited to the form, and why he left so many portrait masterpieces. The attitude of his figures come alive on the canvas.

One interesting biographical note about Sargent. His father, a doctor from Boston, decided at the age of 36 to take his family and up and live the cultured life in Europe. Young Sargent showed talent at a very early age (some of the drawings I speak of were made when he was 19 and 20) and was evidently encouraged in all corners. Let us praise the Sargents!

The brilliant, noble and generous effort that is the RAA Summer Exhibition, which I only had a few minutes to view, was inspiring as well; I’ll be returning to see both shows again as soon as I can.