Studio: international art (30.1904)

Reviews

century have elected to make England their home,
and to produce in it their most characteristic
work, Mr. Sargent is the one who has been the
least affected by the influences of his alien sur-
roundings, for there can be no doubt that his
paintings would have been very much the same
wherever they happened to be produced. Born in
Florence in 1856, John Singer Sargent's earliest
essays in art were copies of portraits by the great
Italian colourists. He showed in them so much
talent that, in 1874, he was taken to Paris by his
father, who obtained for him admission to the studio
of Carolus Duran. The fashionable portrait-painter
at once recognised in the neophyte a kindred
spirit, and it was by his Portrait of Carolus Duran,
exhibited at the Salon in 1879, that the young
American may be said to have struck the keynote
of his future success, such true intuition does it
show into the character of his master. In 1883
Mr. Sargent came to London, and began his
successful career as a portrait painter par
excellence; though his few figure subjects, such
as his earliest exhibited work, En route pour
la Peche, and his Venetian interiors prove that
he could have won distinction in many other
directions. Although he undoubtedly shares the
insight into facial character and the love of
refined and luxurious surroundings of his great
teacher, it is only in his earlier portraits that
Sargent can be said to have been much influenced
by Carolus Duran. He very soon struck a note of
marked originality, for, whereas the courtly French
painter, as a general rule, gives more attention to
the details of his sitters' costumes than to them-
selves, the American subordinates everything to
the individuality of his subject. Turning over the
beautiful series of photogravure reproductions in
the costly volume just issued, which interpret with
great fidelity the subtle characteristics of the ex-
amples given, it is impossible not to be struck with
the unity of purpose they display. The portraits
of members of the English nobility vividly reflect
all that those who sat to him themselves most
highly valued : their refined breeding, their air of
distinction, that indefinable something which
seems to raise them above their fellow men;
yet withal—and this is the true secret of the
artist's popularity—never raising the veil of re-
serve shrouding the inner ego of the aristocrat.
There is, indeed, no doubt that half the popularity
of the painter of the fashionable world would be
gone, did he betray the secrets of what is, to some
extent, a confessional, and show his patrons them-
selves as others see them. It is for this reason
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that Mr. Sargent's portraits of young women and
children are the most pre-eminently successful. In
his Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth for instance, in
spite of the tragic intensity the wonderful actress
has managed to assume, much of her own sweet-
ness and grace shines, as it were, through the
character of the murderess : his Lady Hamilton,
Lady Agnew, and Duchess of Portland are realisa-
tions of true noblewomen, who would have adorned
any station to which they were born ; and in his
exquisite group of children, Carnation, Lily, Lily,
Rose, he has rendered with marvellous intuition
the, as yet, unspoiled natures of his happy-hearted
little models. A very beautiful portrait of an
older woman is that of the philanthropist, Miss
Octavia Hill, a fine presentment of a fine character;
and of the likenesses of men may be specially
noticed those of the poet Coventry Patmore,
whose self-appreciation and satiric humour are
brought out with almost cruel skill ; the chivalrous
yet stern soldier, Sir Ian Hamilton; the determined,
dogged - looking President Roosevelt ; and the
graceful, aristocratic Lord Ribblesdale, whose
whole pose is instinct with restrained vigour and
animation.

Hans Holbein the Younger. by Gerald S.
Davies. (London : George Bell & Sons.) £5 $s.
net.—In this truly noble monograph on the life
and work of one of the greatest masters of the
sixteenth century, whose "gift of limning" has
never been excelled, Mr. Davies has success-
fully grappled with the many difficulties with which
his path was beset. Out of the overwhelming mass
of material at his command he has selected the
essential only, refraining from spoiling the dignity
of his narrative by the inclusion of extraneous
gossip, at the same time weighing well the evidence
for every assertion to which he has committed
himself. He realises the artist, though not, he
says, as thoroughly as he could wish, through his
numerous works ; the man he is content to see in
outline only. In his discussion of the many vexed
questions of attribution Mr. Davies, whilst giving
due weight to the opinions of other experts, fully
maintains his own independence of judgment, and
has declined to admit in this list of the genuine
works of Holbein any that are in the least doubtful.
In his verdict on what may be called the histori-
cal interpretation of the paintings under discus-
sion Mr. Davies is equally free from bias. With
regard, for instance, to the much-discussed Am-
bassadors—a notable instance, by the way, of the
deterioration resulting from so-called restoration—
this most judicial critic rejects the carefully worked