Paintings Described in my Novel

In writing a novel about John Singer Sargent, naturally one must include references to many of his paintings, and in my book, there are more than a dozen that are described at length or referred to in passing. The "portraits" who tell the story are, of course, illustrated by the actual images Sargent painted of them, but I thought I would use this space to fill out the Gallery, so to speak, of the characters and persons that make up my novel. I hope you enjoy seeing them along with a quote from my novel for context (page references in parentheses) This is the first installment of probably four posts on this subject.

El Jaleo or The Gypsy Dancer (p. 34)

In front of the enormous painting--it was nearly eight feet high and eleven feet long--a middle-aged, somewhat portly man, with the air of a professor or lecturer, was pointing at the canvas with no little indignation. "Is this art?" he said. "These low types of men and women, sitting in the background against a dirty wall, their mouths open, heads flung back yowling with the degraded music that, no doubt, has sent this gypsy woman into contortions that no living woman could actually replicate!"


The Gondolier (p. 61-62)

Violet...approached another canvas, somewhat obscured by a scarf thrown at hazard across it, which she drew back. A young, mustachioed man gazed out with frank, dark eyes, his full lips sensual, the dark curls of his hair falling across his forehead from under a wide-brimmed hat. His brown coat had slipped off one shoulder slightly, revealing a strong, smooth neck and collarbone under a gauzy white collarless shirt.

Venetian Street Scene (p. 82-83)

[The painting] depicted a narrow alley with crumbling, exposed brick and plaster walls--what isn't crumbling, in Venice? I thought--the perspective sharply slanted as the two walls and the pavement raced to the very center of the far back of the painting, where a reach of hazy afternoon sunlight whitened a wall with windows and trellises overflowing with plants. A dark doorway was set into the right half of the alley wall, and a woman in a black, fringed shawl and a full, frilly, pinkish lavender skirt, stood nonchalant, one arm crooked with her hand on her hip, one foot resting on the doorstep, as if hesitating at the moment of entering.

Visual Delights of Sargent's Watercolors

Here's a link to a video I put together of the many lovely watercolors displayed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibit of John Singer Sargent's paintings -- plus a few of his very famous portraits in oils that the MFA also has. I think you'll enjoy it! 

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jwriter-1998638-watercolors-jss-show/

Re-Creating Sargent's Glorious Watercolors

Serendipity strikes again! The Historical Novel Society Conference in June in St. Petersburg, Florida, has yielded up a great new connection and resource from the extensive network of the historical fiction sister-and-brother-hood! Bruce Macbain, author of Roman Games and The Bull Slayer, and his wife Carol, purchased my Sargent book and lent it to a friend, Wendy Soneson, who happens to be a terrific artist and great fan of Sargent's. Wendy is currently scheduled to give demonstrations of Sargent's watercolor  technique at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in October, in conjunction with the huge exhibit of Sargent's watercolors there. Her websites are well worth looking at: www.wendysoneson.com and www.watercolorweekly.com for both the Sargent paintings and her own portraits and landscapes.

In the meantime, here is a wonderful version by Wendy of that infamous Amelie Gautreau (Madame X) in one of the gazillion poses Sargent tried before he found the right one. And a few more of his paintings, a la Wendy.

A Living Madame X

A few weeks ago, I attended (and helped plan and run) the 5th North American Historical Novel Society, held at the Hotel Vinoy in St. Petersburg, Florida. Three hundred-some historical fiction authors, editors, agents and just plain fans had a great time over the long weekend of sessions and parties and gatherings. At our 'dress-up' Saturday night dinner banquet, including a Costume pageant, one of our author-attendees, Leslie Carroll (her nom de plume is Juliet Gray), showed up dressed very much like the infamous Virginie Amelie Gautreau, Sargent's scandalous "Madame X". Of course, I had to take a picture of her in the proper pose, although there wasn't an appropriate little table nearby.  Thanks, Leslie!

The Family of Edward Darley Boit

After the period of time covered in my novel (1882-84),  hard times lay ahead for the Boit family, at least emotionally. Isa died in 1894, and the four girls (Florence, Jane, Mary Louisa and Julia), with their father, continued their travels throughout Europe, Great Britain and the U.S. But none of the girls liked America very much, and Ned, too, preferred the ease and openness of Europe to his native land. He was married again in 1897 to a very young woman, a friend of his daughter Mary Louisa, confusingly enough named Florence, and together they had two boys. Unfortunately, his second wife died a few weeks after giving birth to her second son, in 1902. After recovering from this untimely death, Ned renewed his interest in his painting, and mounted several exhibitions of his work (one with Sargent in Boston). Ned died in 1915, in Florence. 

As for the Boit daughters, Florence (leaning against the pillar in the painting) was always a rather odd duck, never evincing the slightest interest in marrying or attending the usual social events. She was an avid player of the relatively new sport of golf—which she introduced to the Boston area, inspiring the local rich folks to build a course at a country club in Newport. She and a cousin, Jane Boit Patten, nicknamed “Pat” to distinguish her from the innumerable Jane’s and Jeanie’s in the family, became fast friends and in later years, lived in what was called a “Boston marriage”, two spinster ladies living together. 

The second daughter, Jane (standing next to Florence, facing forward), both before Isa died and afterward, was ill a great deal, both physically and emotionally, and spent several periods of time in and out of “retreats” and institutions where she underwent various cures to allay her apparently rather violent fits of anger and depression. Not much is known about Mary Louisa (standing to the far left, hands behind her back) except that she and Julia (on the floor with her babydoll) were always together, and Julia became fairly well known for her paintings and illustrations in water colors. Florence died at age fifty-one, on December 8, 1919, in Paris. 

With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the three remaining sisters moved back to the United States. Julia and Mary Louisa (also known as “Isa” like her mother) lived in Newport, where Mary Louisa died on June 27, 1945, at age seventy-one. Jane (or “Jeanie” as she was known) died at the age of eighty-five on November 8, 1955, in Greenwich, Connecticut. Julia passed away in February 1969, at the age of ninety-one.

Sargent and the Duchess of Marlborough

I just read an oddly entertaining historical novel, A Weekend at Blenheim, by J.P. Morrissey, that included not only Winston Churchill (as might be expected) but also John Singer Sargent! It is a gnarly tale of deceit, arrogance, lust, hate and blind ambition, and the aristocracy comes off as most unattractive to say the least. Consuelo (nee Vanderbilt) was an American heiress who was quite blatantly "married off" to the 9th Duke of Marlborough (known as "Sunny" which he absolutely was not) when they were both quite young, in 1895. Consuelo's wedding present of $2.5 million pretty much saved Blenheim from crumbling to pieces. The two were divorced, quite messily, by 1921. Anyway, in the novel, Sargent is there for the weekend, along with the purely fictional protagonist who is the plebian observer of all the wretched goings-on. Sargent is spoken of, sotto voce, as a "sodomist", yet is witnessed in flagrante with the Duchess by our intrepid observer who sees them through a window--the Duchess is posing nude while Sargent, also nude, makes ardently drawn charcoal sketches of her, then falls upon her with decided passion! (my my!)

Sargent did indeed paint an enormous portrait of the Duke's family (above)--not at all his best effort, imho--but he was "told" that it was to complement an earlier painting of the 4th Duke and his family by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Here is Reynolds' portrait, as well as a sketch of Duchess Consuelo by Sargent. 

Hmm, maybe there was something to that fictional affair after all?

R.I.P. Henry James

Today was the 97th anniversary of Henry James' death. He is by far my favorite "classic" writer. To Mr. James, I lift a glass of port and say, "Well lived, well written, well read, dear Mr. James!"

This famous portrait of Henry James was painted by (who else?) John Singer Sargent, in 1912. There is an earlier sketch by Sargent, too. The two met in 1883 and James was very taken by the young, handsome and talented Euro-American artist, and was instrumental in helping Sargent find many clients in England after he'd "fled" from France. I couldn't resist writing more than one scene in my novel that featured James.

Two recent books for James fans: The Master, a novel by Colm Toibin, and Portrait of a Novel, non-fiction about one of James's most famous novels, by Michael Gorra.

Excerpt from PORTRAITS

Prologue

I see them now in mirrors, on darkened windows, in waking dreams—all the faces I have painted. Children, and men, and women. Always the women, with their languid eyes, their tense, anxious lips, their serene brows and haughty noses.

John Singer Sargent, a painter of portraits, that’s who I am. I chose to be a painter of portraits because I was very good at it, because I liked the acclaim, the society, the weekends at country houses outside Paris and London and Florence—and because it paid well, very well. I died a rich man. Childless, unmarried, though not unloved—no, not unloved.

The portraits of my friends are the book of my life—my paintings are the words that I can never find to explain myself, to defend myself, even to know my very self. Two portraits in particular, painted before I reached the age of thirty, haunt me even now, more than all the rest. One became a private grief, softened by time but never truly healed. The other, a public scandal that changed everything. Together they turned me from a young man, a foolish man, into a sad and sorry shadow that only I could see when I looked in a mirror. I wonder if you can guess which ones they are? As the years dragged on, I endured as the entertaining, successful, eccentric old swell who ate too much, smoked too much—and let no one come too close.

As I cannot easily speak for myself, and as I yearn to be known, at least a little, I will allow my portraits to speak for me—their stories will illuminate mine. You may say that I am still keeping myself one step removed, so that you, reader, will not come too close—well, that’s as may be.  It is there in those portraits you must seek me, if you would know me.

I am the painter of portraits.

Madame X: Then and Now

 Artists, and especially photographers, have always been fascinated by the scandalous "Madame X", one of Sargent's most famous portraits, and the one of which he wrote in a letter when he sold it (c. 1917) to the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, "probably the best thing I've ever done." 

Here is the "original" portrait in a black & white photo, the only known photograph of the portrait as it was originally displayed, with Virginie Amelie Gautreau's dress strap hanging off her shoulder. Later, after the Salon of 1884 was over, Sargent took the portrait back to his studio on Boulevard Berthier and scraped away the offending strap, painting it so it was firmly attached to the lady's shoulder. You'll have to read my novel to learn more about the whole backstory! (coming late January 2013)




A few years ago, Nicole Kidman posed for some interesting Vogue photographs in which she was dressed as famous portraits, one of which was, of course, Madame X.  Didn't quite get the posture right (imho), and Ms. Kidman looks less serene, more startled and anxious than Amelie Gautreau -- and her right arm isn't nearly as contorted (something that Sargent's subject complained about endlessly!)









 


And then, just this morning, I came across this delicious new take on Madame X. It's featured on a website of an artist, James Kinser (http://www.jkinser.com/more-muse-a-portrait-of-madame-x/madamex-duo), working with photographer Niki Gangruth, who together deftly and brilliantly explore the "rich, undefined land between genders" in a project they call "Muse". There are several other re-visioned famous portraits (Vermeer, Ingres, Magritte) that are well worth seeing. Again, the pose doesn't exactly duplicate everything, especially that twisted right hand, but I think this one has more of the cool serenity of the original. There was, in fact, a strong undercurrent of "gender-bending" at the end of the 19th century and a little beyond (think Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Toulouse Lautrec); Singer Sargent and the crowd he ran with were kind of on the experimenting edge of this kind of "new world."


Fascinating!!

Sargent's Venetian Days

I was in Venice in September, and spent one precious afternoon walking through the calles (tiny narrow alleys) and the campos (plazas or squares, many of them tiny, just a large intersection of alleys), taking photos of places that reminded me of the many paintings Sargent created during his sojourns in Venice, a city he loved very much. Here's two samples of what I found, compared to one of my favorite Sargent oil paintings (Venetian Street Scene) and another watercolor below:

 

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been...

My second historical novel--Portraits of an Artist, about John Singer Sargent--is about to be published. It will be available in February 2013, to be specific, both online and in bookstores. My publisher is The Sand Hill Review Press of San Mateo, California. 

It has been a long and interesting journey that started fifteen years ago when I saw a major exhibit of Sargent's works at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. As I start this blog about my novel, the artist and his art, I want to show you the painting that was the beginning of it all for me: Portraits d'Enfants, also known as The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. I hope you keep coming back for more, as there is a lot more to see.

This portrait was painted in 1883. I stood in front of this painting for a very long time, and came back to it again and again--there was a mystery here, I felt it very deeply--and then I later read a single sentence about the Boit girls attributed to Sister Wendy Beckett of PBS Art fame, “There’s something sad about the picture, and when I discovered that these four pretty, wealthy girls never married, not one of them, one begins to feel that Sargent had intuited something of that….” 

I said to myself, I have to write a novel about them, some day. But what started out as a story about the four daughters became instead a story about the artist and his portraits during a very intense, deeply creative time in his life: Paris, 1882-1884, when he painted not only this unique portrait, but also others whose stories are worth investigating....more to come.