Sargent and the Sea
10 July - 26 September, 2010
Royal Academy Of Arts - Admission Charge
This exhibition has been organised by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in cooperation with the Royal Academy of Arts.
.I had always thought of artist John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925) as a painter of glossy, high-concept portraits for wealthy sitters. He did indeed become a fashionable portraitist in his later years but before that, had a long journey developing as an artist. The roots of his career saw a more immediate response to his environment, less defined and refined, but fresh, bewitching and very beautiful. That beginning can be traced in Sargent and the Sea, now open at the Royal Academy of Arts.
In the opening gallery of the exhibition is a wall covered by a map of Europe, pinpointing all of the places visited by Sargent and his parents after his birth in Florence, in 1856. The Sargents were not Italian but from the United States, and considered a life in pursuit of culture to be more important than a comfortable, settled existence. The map pinpoints the Sargents not only in place but in time, an important perspective of the creative developments of their son.
In this first section, Normandy, Brittany and Nice (1874 –75), is one of his earlier sketches, Octopus and Starfish, Beuzeva (Calvados), Normandy, (1874). This pencil sketch – done on the page of an exercise book – is simple, direct and utterly charming, the result of his hunting and gathering images on French beaches, at low tide. In 1876, Sargent made his first trip to the United States, travelling by sea. At that time, this was the only way to get there.
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| John Singer Sargent Atlantic Storm1876 Oil on canvas 58.5 x 81.5 cm Curtis Galleries, Minneapolis |
The Atlantic Voyages gallery charts Sargent’s response to the voyage there, and his journey back, four months later. Study carefully Atlantic Storm (1876). This painting is done from the point of view of a traveller on the deck of a ship during an Atlantic storm. The perspective is almost giddying and the pale, ghostly form of a suspended lifeboat in the foreground reminds us of what could happen to the ship. Realistically, Sargent most likely created the painting from sketches, and completed it with his feet planted firmly on the floor of a studio.
In the spring of 1878, Sargent submitted En Route pour la pêche (Setting out to Fish) to the Paris Salon. This painting was the result of a series of sketches and studies he had made on the beaches of the small fishing village of Cancale on the coast of Brittany, the previous summer. The painting is interesting in both its subject matter – people at work – and in the work itself; loose brushwork and the palette of greys and blues evoke another famous ‘seaside’ painting.
In 1870, Claude Oscar Monet had painted (National Gallery, London). Four years later, Monet and a group of fellow artists held an exhibition in Paris. Monet’s contribution was a painting called Impression: Sunrise. Subsequently, this group of artists became known as the impressionists and, although initially rejected by the Salon, became one of the most popular movements in art, ever. However, in spite of the ‘impressionistic’ look of Sargent’s sketches and paintings, I believe that their freshness and immediacy spring from his own creative conviction, rather than any attempt to pander to fashion. Neapolitan Children Bathing (1879) has this same quality, though in a warmer palette of colours, this being Sergent’s response to having travelled to Capri, near Naples in 1878.
Sargent continued his travels about Mediterranean ports until 1880. In addition to Naples, he travelled to Nice and Marseilles, to Spain and north Africa. From 1880 onwards, he turned to the painting that earned his name and his money – portraits. However, in the early 1900s, he began travelling again to costal areas, among them Venice.
Sargent painted Santa Maria della Salute, Venice between 1904 and 1907. In it, we can see the outline of the church building through the rigging of a boat moored in the lagoon. Sargent my have been looking towards land, but he had never forgotten the water, as this final Coda to the exhibition demonstrates. We highly recommend this special, summertime treat. It is open until September 26.
Mary Phelan, 2010