The following survey of Sargent's painting technique as seen through the eyes of his contemporaries is adapted from the

cited sources. I have emended or edited where it seemed necessary to clarify or untangle the syntax, and added comments in brackets.

hen !r. "ohn #ollier was writing his book on The $rt of %ortrait %ainting he asked "ohn Singer Sargent for an account of his methods. Sargent replied&

$s to describing my procedure, I find the greatest difficulty in making it clear to pupils, even with the palette and brushes in hand and with the model before me' to serve it up in the abstract seems to me hopeless.

ith the assistance, however, of two of his former pupils, !iss (eyneman and !r. (enry (aley, it is possible to obtain some idea of his methods.

hen he first undertook to critici)e !iss (eyneman's work he insisted that she should draw from models and not from friends.

If you paint your friends, they and you are chiefly concerned about the likeness. *ou can't discard a canvas when you please and begin anew + you can't go on indefinitely until you have solved a problem.

(e disapproved ,!iss (eyneman continues- of my palette and brushes. .n the palette the paints had not been put out with any system.

*ou do not want dabs of color, you want plenty of paint to paint with.

Then the brushes came in for derision.

/o wonder your painting is like feathers if you use these.

(aving scraped the palette clean he put out enough paint so it seemed for a do)en pictures.

%ainting is quite hard enough without adding to your difficulties by keeping your tools in bad condition. *ou want good thick brushes that will hold the paint and that will resist in a sense the stroke on the canvas.

(e then with a bit of charcoal placed the head with no more than a few careful lines over which he passed a rag, so that is was a perfectly clean grayish colored canvas ,which he preferred-, faintly showing where the lines had been. Then he began to paint. $t the start he used sparingly a little turpentine to rub in a general tone over the background and to outline the head ,the real outline where the light and shadow meet, not the place where the head meets the background-, to indicate the mass of the hair and the tone of the dress. The features were not even suggested. This was a matter of a few moments. 0or the rest he used his color without a medium of any kind, neither oil, turpentine or any other mixture.

The thicker you paint, the more color flows.

(e had put in this general outline very rapidly, hardly more than smudges, but from the moment that he began really to paint, he worked with a kind of concentrated deliberation, a slow haste so to speak, holding his brush poised in the air for an instant and then putting it 1ust where and how he intended it to fall.

To watch the head develop from the start was like the sudden lifting of a blind in a dark room. 2very stage was a revelation. 0or one thing he often moved his easel next to the sitter so that when he walked back from it he saw the canvas and the original in the same light, at the same distance, at the same angle of vision. 3This is explicitly the sight si)e method of drawing and painting that was traditional in 45th century academic art training and which appears to be the method Sargent passed on to his pupils. It seems to conflict with descriptions below of Sargent's personal studio technique, and it was certainly not the method by which he painted his landscape watercolors.6 (e aimed at once for the true general tone of the background, of the hair, and for the transition tone between the two. (e showed me how the light flowed over the surface of the cheek into the background itself.

$t first he worked only for the middle tones, to model in large planes, as he would have done had the head been an apple. In short, he painted as a sculptor models, for the great masses first, but with this difference that the sculptor can roughly lump in his head and cut it down afterwards, while the painter, by the limitations of his material, is bound to work instantly for an absolute precision of mass, in the color and outline he intends to preserve.

2conomy of effort in every way, he preached, the sharpest self control, the fewest strokes possible to express a fact, the least slapping about of purposeless paint. (e believed, with #arolus78uran, that painting was a science which it was necessary to acquire in order to make of it an art.

*ou must draw with your brush as readily, as unconsciously almost as you draw with your pencil.

(e advised doing a head for a portrait slightly under life si)e, to counteract the tendency to paint larger than life. 2ven so he laid in a head slightly larger than he intended to leave it, so that he could model the edges with and into the background.

The hills of paint vanished from the palette, yet there was no heaviness on the canvas& although the shadow was painted as heavily as the light, it retained its transparency.

If you see a thing transparent, paint it transparent' don't get the effect by a thin strain showing the canvas through. That's a mere trick. The more delicate the transition, the more you must study it for the exact tone.

The lightness and certainly of his touch was marvelous to behold. /ever was there any painter who could indicate a mouth with more subtlety, with more mobility, or with keener differentiation. $s he painted it, the mouth bloomed out of the face, an integral part of it, not, as in the great ma1ority of portraits, painted on it, a separate thing. (e showed how much could be expressed in painting the form of the brow, the cheekbones, and the moving muscles around the eyes and mouth, where the character betrayed itself most readily& and under his hands, a head would be an ama)ing likeness long before he had so much as indicated the features themselves. In fact, it seemed to me the mouth and nose 1ust happened with the modeling of the cheeks' and one eye, living and luminous, had been placed in the socket so carefully prepared for it ,like a poached egg dropped on a plate, he described the process- when a clock in the neighborhood struck and !r. Sargent was suddenly reminded that he had a late appointment with a sitter. In his absorption he had quite forgotten it. (e hated to leave the canvas.

If only one had oneself under perfect control, one could always paint a thing, finally in one sitting. /ot that you are to attempt this. If you work on a head for a week without indicating the features you will have learnt something about the modeling of the head.

2very brush stroke while he painted had modeled the head or further simplified it. (e was careful to insist that there were many roads to 9ome, that beautiful painting would be the result of any method or no method, but he was convinced that by the method he advocated, and followed all his life, a freedom could be acquired, a technical mastery that left the mind at liberty to concentrate on a deeper or more subtle expression.

I had previously been taught to paint a head in three separate stages, each one repeating + in charcoal, in thin color wash and in paint + the same things. :y Sargent's method the head developed by one process. ;ntil almost at the end there were no features or accents, simply a solid shape growing out of and into a background with which it was one. hen at last he did put them in, each accent was studied with an intensity that kept his brush poised in mid air until eye and hand had steadied to one purpose, and then ... bling< The stroke resounded almost like a note of music. It annoyed him very much if the accents were carelessly indicated, without accurate consideration of their comparative importance. They were, in a way, the nails upon which the whole structure depended for support.

!iss (eyneman subsequently left a study she had made, at Sargent's studio with a note begging him to write, =yes= or =no,= according to whether he approved or not. (e wrote the next day&

I think your study shows great progress much better values and consequently greater breathe of effect with less monotony in the detail. I still think you ought to paint thicker paint all the half tones and general passages quite thick and always paint one thing into another and not side by side until they touch. There are a few hard and small places

where you have not followed this rule sternly enough.

$ few days later he called. !iss (eyneman's usual model had failed, and she persuaded her chairwoman to sit in instead' Sargent offered to paint the head of the model.

This old head was perhaps easier to indicate with its prominent forms, but the painting was more subtle. I recall my astonishment when he went into the background with a most brilliant pure blue where I had seen only unrevealed darkness.

8on't you see it> The way the light quivers across it>

I had not perceived it& 1ust as, until each stroke emphasi)ed his intention. I did not see how he managed to covey the thin hair stretched tightly back over the skull without actually painting it. (e painted light or shadow, a four cornered ob1ect with the corners worn smooth, as definite in form as it was indefinite in color, and inexpressibly delicate in its transitions.

(e concentrated his whole attention upon the middle tone that carried the light into the shadow. (e kept up a running commentary of explanation as he went, appraising each stroke, often condemning it and saying&

That is how not to do it< ?eep the planes free and simple.

(e drew a full, large brush down the whole contour of a cheek, obliterating apparently all the modeling underneath, but it was always further to simplify that he took these really dreadful risks, smiling at my ill concealed perturbation and quite sympathi)ing with it.

The second painting taught me that all the tonal values of a portrait depend upon its first painting, and that no tinkering can ever rectify an initial failure. %rovided every stage is correct, a painter of !r. Sargent's caliber could paint for a week on one head and never retrace his steps + but he never attempted to correct one. (e held that it was as impossible for a painter to try to repaint a head where the understructure was wrong, as for a sculptor to remodel the features of a head that has not been understood in the mass. That is why !r. Sargent often repainted the head a do)en times. (e told me that he had done no less than sixteen of !rs. (ammersley.

hen he was dissatisfied he never hesitated to destroy what he had done. (e spent three weeks, for instance, painting @ady 8'$bernon in a white dress. .ne morning, after a few minutes of what was to be the final setting, he suddenly set to work and scraped out what he had painted. The present portrait in a black dress was done in three sittings.

(e did the same with the portrait of !rs. edgwood, and many others. !iss 2li)a edgewood relates that in 4A5B he consented, at the insistence of $lfred %arsons, to paint her mother. She sat for him twelve times, but after the twelfth sitting he said they would both be the better for a rest. (e then wrote to !iss edgwood that he was humiliated by his failure to catch the variable and fleeting charm of her mother's personality + that looked like the end of the portrait. Some weeks later he saw !rs. edgwood at :roadway, and struck with a new aspect he said&

If you will come up next week we will finish that portrait.

She came to Tite Street, a new canvas was produced, and in six sittings he completed the picture which was shown at the !emorial 2xhibition.

%aint a hundred studies& keep any number of clean canvases ready, of all shapes and si)es so that you are never held back by the sudden need of one. *ou can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.

(e though it was excellent practice to paint flowers, for the precision necessary in the study of their forms and the pure brilliancy of their color. It refreshed the tone of one's indoor portraits, he insisted, to paint landscapes or figures out of doors, as well as to change one's medium now and then. (e disliked pastel, it seemed to him too artificial, or else it was made to look like oil or watercolor, and in that case why not use oil or watercolor>

;pon one occasion, after painting for me, he saw one hard edge, and drew a brush across it, very lightly, saying at the same time&

This is a disgraceful thing to do, and means slovenly painting. 8on't ever let me see you do it....

I have also seen the assertion that he painted a head always in one sitting. (e painted a head always in one process, but that could be carried over several sittings. (e never attempted to repaint one eye or to raise or lower it, for he held that the construction of a head prepared the place for the eye, and if it was wrongly placed, the understructure was wrong, and he ruthlessly scraped and repainted the head from the beginning. That is one reason why his brushwork looks so fluent and easy' he took more trouble to keep the unworried look of a fresh sketch than many a painter puts upon his whole canvas.

The following extracts from !r. (aley's account of Sargent's teaching at the 9oyal $cademy Schools, 4A5D745EE,

throw further light on his method&

The significance of his teaching was not always immediately apparent' it had the virtue of revealing itself with riper experience. (is hesitation was probably due to a searching out for something to grasp in the mind of the student, that achieved, he would unfold a deep earnestness, subdued but intense. (e was regarded by some of his students as an indifferent teacher, by others as a =wonder=' as a =wonder= I like to regard him.

(e dealt always with the fundamentals. !any were fogged as to his aim. These fundamentals had to be constantly exercised and applied.

hen drawing from the model, never be without the plumb line in the left hand. 2veryone has a bias, either to the right hand or the left of the vertical. The use of the plumb line rectifies this error and develops a keen appreciation of the vertical.

(e then took up the charcoal, with arm extended to its full length, and head thrown well back& all the while intensely calculating, he slowly and deliberately mapped the proportions of the large masses of a head and shoulders, first the poise of the head upon the neck, its relation with the shoulders. Then rapidly indicate the mass of the hair, then spots locating the exact position of the features, at the same time noting their tone values and special character, finally adding any further accent or dark shadow which made up the head, the neck, the shoulders and head of the sternum.

$fter his departure I immediately plumbed those points before any movement took place of the model and found them very accurate. $ formula of his for drawing was&

Fet your spots in their right place and your lines precisely at their relative angles.

.n one occasion in the evening life school I well remember Sargent complaining that no one seemed concerned about anything more than an approximate articulation of the head upon the neck and shoulders. The 3conventional6 procedure was to register carefully the whole pose at the first evening's sitting of two hours. The remainder of the sittings were devoted to making a thoroughly finished tone drawing in chalk, adhering to the original outline, working from the head downwards. Thus the drawing was not affected by any chance deviation from the original pose by the model. Sargent could not reconcile himself to this. The method he tried to inculcate was to lay in the drawing afresh at every sitting, getting in one combined effort a complete interpretation of the model. The skull was to articulate properly upon the vertebrae' the same with all the limbs. $ keen structural easy supple, moveable machine, every figure with its own individual characteristic as like as possible, an accomplishment requiring enormous practice and experience with charcoal, but taken as a very desirable goal to aim at, a method he followed in his own painting. To the student it meant a continually altered drawing, to portray the varying moods of the model.

In connection with the painting, the same principles were maintained&

%ainting is an interpretation of tone through the medium of color drawn with the brush. ;se a large brush. 8o not starve your palette. $ccurately place your masses with the charcoal, then lay in the background about half an inch over the border of the ad1oining tones, true as possible, then lay in the mass of hair, recovering the drawing and fusing the tones with the background, and overlapping the flesh of the forehead. 0or the face lay in a middle flesh tone, light on the left side and dark on the shadow side, always recovering the drawing, and most carefully fusing the flesh into the background. %aint flesh into background and background into flesh, until the exact quality is obtained, both in color and tone so the whole resembles as wig maker's block.

Then follows the most marked and characteristic accents of the features in place and tone and drawing as accurate as possible, painting deliberately into wet ground, testing your work by repeatedly standing well back, viewing it as a whole, a very important thing. $fter this take up the subtler tones which express the retiring planes of the head, temples, chin, nose, and cheeks with neck, then the still more subtle drawing of mouth and eyes, fusing tone into tone all the time, until finally with deliberate touch the high lights are laid in, this occupies the first sitting and should the painting not be satisfactory, the whole is ruthlessly fogged by brushing together, the ob1ect being not to allow any parts well done, to interfere with that principle of oneness, or unity of every part' the brushing together engendered an appetite to attack the problem afresh at every sitting each attempt resulting in a more complete visuali)ation in the mind. The process is repeated until the canvas is completed.

Sargent would press home the fact that the subtleties of paint must be controlled by continually viewing the work from a distance.

Stand back + get well away + and you will reali)e the great danger there is over overstating a tone. ?eep the thing as a whole in your mind. Tones so subtle as not to be detected on close acquaintance can only be ad1usted by this means.

hen we were gathered in front of our display of sketches for composition awaiting some criticism, Sargent would walk along the whole collection, rapidly looking at each one, and without singling out any in particular for comment, he would merely say&

Fet in your mind the sculptor's view of things, arrange a composition, decoratively, easy, and accidental.

This would be said in a hesitating manner, and then he would quietly retire. .n one occasion, when the sub1ect set for a composition was a portrait, the criticism was& =not one of them seriously considered.= !any we had thought quite good, as an indication of what might be tried while a portrait was in progress. That would not do for Sargent. $ sketch must be seriously planned, tried and tried again, turned about until it satisfies every requirement, and a perfect visuali)ation is attained. $ sketch must not be merely a pattern of pleasant shapes, 1ust pleasing to the eyes, 1ust merely a fancy. It must be a very possible thing, a definite arrangement + everything fitting in a plan and in true relationship frankly standing upon a hori)ontal plane coinciding in their place with a prearranged line. $s a plan is to a building, so must the sketch be to the picture.

#ultivate an ever continuous power of observation. herever you are, be always ready to make slight notes of postures, groups and incidents. Store up in the mind without ceasing a continuous stream of observations from which to make selections later. $bove all things get abroad, see the sunlight, and everything that is to be seen, the power of selection will follow. :e continually making mental notes, make them again and again, test what you remember by sketches until you have got them fixed. 8o not be backward at using every device and making every experiment that ingenuity can devise, in order to attain that sense of completeness which nature so beautifully provides, always bearing in mind the limitations of the materials in which you work.

It was not only students who acknowledged their debt to Sargent. (ubert (erkomer in his reminiscences writes& =I have learned much from Sargent in the planning of lights and darks, the balance in tonality of background in its relation to the figure, the true emphasi)ing of essentials.=

Sargent was well aware of the pitfalls that await the painter of the fashionable world, and as sitter after sitter took his place on the dais in his Tite Street studio he seemed to become more sensible of them. (e tried again and again to escape, and he often, in his letters, expressed his fatigue. (e wearied of the limitations imposed by his commissioned art. %ainting those who want to be painted, instead of those whom the artist wants to paint, leads inevitably to a bargain, to a compromise between the artist's individuality and the claims of the model. !annerism becomes a way out' that which pleases becomes an aim. $rtistic problems give way before personal considerations& the decorative quality of a picture takes a secondary place. Sargent's sincerity, the driving need he had to express himself in his own way, his satiety with models imposed on him by fashion, culminated in revolt. (e was forced, now and then, it is true, to return to his portraits, but his :oston work absorbed him more and more. The call of his studio in 0ulham 9oad when he was in @ondon, and of the $lps and the south of 2urope in summer, came first. In 454E his exhibits at the $cdemy, instead of portraits, were Flacier Streams, $lbanian .live Fatherers, Gespers and $ Farden at #orfu' at the /ew 2nglish $rt #lub his exhibits were 0lannels, .n the Fuidecca, The #hurch of Santa !aria della Salute, $ 0lorentine /octurne, $ !oraine and .live Frove.

hen in 45E4 !r. ".:. !anson, then a student, wrote to Sargent for advice he received the following reply&

In reply to your questions I fear that I can only give you the most general advice. The only school in @ondon of which I have any personal knowledge is the 9oyal $cademy. If the limit of age does not prevent your entering it I should advise you to do so. There are also very good teachers at the Slade School. *ou say you are studying painting to become a portrait painter. I think you would be making a great mistake if you kept that only in view during the time you intend to work on a life class + where the ob1ect of the student should be to acquire sufficient command over his material to do whatever nature presents to him.

It is evident that in his student days Sargent shared the apprehension excited in the studio by his brilliant, free spoken teacher #arolus78uran. =2n art tout ce qui n'est pas indispensable est nuisible= + =In art, all that is not indispensable is unnecessary= was one of the precepts which 8uran had formulated after his study of Gelasque). It became on of the texts of his studio. (e urged his students to make copies of the pictures of Gelasque) in the @ouvre, not laborious copies, but copies =au premier coup.= In painting a picture he would retreat a few steps from the canvas and then once more advance with his brush balanced in his hand as though it were a rapier and he were engaged in a bout with a fencing master. These gestures were often accompanied by appeals to the shade of Gelasque).

Those who watched Sargent painting in his studio were reminded of his habit of stepping backwards after almost every stroke of the brush on the canvas, and the tracks of his paces so worn on the carpet that it suggested a sheep run through the heather. (e, too, when in difficulties, had a sort of battle cry of =8emons, demons,= with which he would dash at his canvas.

It was, then, to such a workshop and under such a master that Sargent at the age of eighteen was admitted as a pupil, and the question arises, what did Sargent owe to the teaching of 8uran> The question is best answered by remembering 8uran's precepts and seeing how far they are reflected in Sargent's art. It has already been shown how 8uran insisted on the study of Gelasque) and the omission in art of all that was not essential to the reali)ation of the central purpose of a painting. (e had himself traveled far from the sharp contrast of values by which he had dramati)ed his picture @'$ssassinH. (e had got rid of his tendency to be spectacular. 0rom Gelasque) he had learned to simplify. (is teaching was focused on the study of values and half tones, above all, half tones. (ere lies, he would say, the secret of painting, in the half tone of each plane, in economi)ing the accents and in the handling of the lights so that they should play their part in the picture only with a palpable and necessary significance. .ther things were subordinate. If Sargent excels in these respects, it is sufficient to recall the fact that they formed the core of 8uran's instruction. There is no need to put his influence higher. 0ew pupils in painting who have the talent to absorb their master's teaching fail in the long run to outgrow his influence and to progress beyond and outside it on lines of their own.

Sargent himself always recogni)ed his debt to the teaching of 8uran. $t the height of his fame, when looking at a portrait by a younger painter, he observed to !r. illiam "ames&

That has value. I wonder who taught him to do that. I thought #arolus was the only man who taught that. (e couldn't do it himself, but he could teach it.

$gain, when !r. "ames asked him how to avoid false accents he said&

*ou must classify the tonal values. If you begin with the middle tone and work outward from it towards the darks and lights + so that you deal last with your darkest darks and highest lights + you avoid false accents. That's what #arolus taught me. $nd 0ran) (als. It's hard to find anyone who knew more about oil painting than 0ran) (als. That was his procedure. .f course, a sketch is different. *ou don't mind false accents there. :ut once you have made false accents in something which you wish to carry far, in order to correct them you have to deal with both sides of them and that gets you into a lot of trouble. So that's the best method for anything you wish to carry far in oil paint.

!r. Feorge !oore, in one of the most illuminating essays in !odern %ainting, said& =In 4AIE tonal values came upon 0rance like a religion. 9embrandt was the new !essiah, (olland was the (oly @and, and disciples were busy dispensing the propaganda in every studio.= The religion had no more ardent apostle than #arolus 8uran.

.ne picture Sargent exhibited at the $cademy in 4A5B may be especially mentioned because it elected the warm

admiration of !r. Feorge !oore, who was far from being enthusiastic about Sargent. !r. !oore wrote of this portrait ,!iss %riestley-&

=Fradually a pale faced woman with arched eybrows, draws our eyes and fixes our thoughts. It is a portrait by !r. Sargent, one of the best he has painted. :y the side of a 0ran) (als it might look small and thin, but nothing short of a fine (als would affect its real beauty. !y admiration for !r. Sargent has often hesitated, but this picture completely wins me. The rendering is full of the beauty of incomparable skill. The portrait tells us that he has learned the last and most difficult lesson + how to omit. $ beautiful work, certainly. I should call it a perfect work were it not that the drawing is a little too obvious& in places we can detect the manner. It does not coule du source like the drawing of the very great masters.=

It was a common experience for Sargent, as probably for all portrait painters, to be asked to alter some feature in a face, generally the mouth. Indeed, this happened so often that he used to define a portrait as =a likeness in which there was something wrong about the mouth.= (e rarely acceded, and then only when he was already convinced that it was wrong. In the case of 0rancis "enkinson, the #ambridge @ibrarian, it was pointed out that he had omitted many lines and wrinkles which ought to be shown on the model's face. Sargent refused to make, he said, =a railway system of him.=

(is refusal more than once led to scenes. .n one occasion the lady who had taken exception to the rendering of her mouth became hysterical and fainted. Sargent was the last man in the world to cope with such a situation. $ friend who happened to call found him helplessly contemplating the scene. The model was restored to sense, but the mouth remained as it was.

$ sitter has given the following account of being painted by Sargent in 45EJ&

$t one of my sittings during which !r. Sargent painted my hands I sat motionless for two hours. $ certain way in which I had unconsciously put my hands together pleased him very much because the posture, he said, was clearly natural to me. (e implored me not to move. e worked very hard + he with his magical brush, I with my determination to control fidgets and the restless instincts to which sitters are prone when forced to remain still for any length of time. 0or the most part we were silent. .ccasionally I heard him muttering to himself. .nce I caught& =Fainsborough would have done it< Fainsborough would have done it<=

(e worked at a fever heat, and it was so infectious that I felt my temples throbbing in sympathy with his efforts, the veins swelling in my brow. $t one moment I thought I was going to faint with the sense of tension and my fear to spoil the pose which had enthused him.

$t the end of two hours he declared that the hands were a failure, and he obliterated them.

=I must try again next time,= he said in a melancholy tone. $t the next sitting he painted the hands quickly as they now appear, a tour de force in the opinion of some, utterly unsuccessful in the eyes of others.

!y husband came several times to the sittings. .n one occasion !r. Sargent sent for him specially. (e rode across the %ark to Tite Street. (e found !r. Sargent in a depressed mood. The opals baffled him. (e said he couldn't paint them. They had been a nightmare to him, he declared, throughout the painting of the portrait. That morning he was certainly in despair.

%resently he said to my husband& =@et's play a 0aurH duet.= They played, !r. Sargent thumping out the bass with strong, stumpy fingers. $t the conclusion !r. Sargent 1umped up briskly, went back to the portrait and with a few quick strokes, dabbed in the opals. (e called to my husband to come and look& =I've done the damned thing,= he laughed under his breath.

!y sister, on the occasion of her visit to the studio during my last sitting, remembers seeing !r. Sargent paint my scarf with one sweep of his brush.

hat appeared to interest him more than anything else when I arrived was to know what music I had brought with me. To turn from color to sound evidently refreshed him, and presumably the one art stimulated the other in his brain.

$dapted from "ohn Sargent by 2van #harteris ,/ew *ork& Scribner's Sons, 45JD-.

To see one of Sargent's watercolours in the making always reminded me of the first chapter of Fenesis, when the evening and the morning were the first day, order developed from chaos, and one thing after another was created of its kind. (aving chosen his sub1ect and settled himself with the sunshade, hat and paraphernalia all to his liking, he would make moan over the difficulty of the sub1ect and say, =I can't do it,= or =It's unpaintable,= and finally, = ell, let's have a whack at it.=

%erfect absorption would follow, and after what looked like a shorthand formula in pencil was on the block, the most risky and adventurous technique would come into play, great washes of colour would go on the paper with huge brushes or sponges, and muttering of =8emons< 8emons<= or =The devils own<= would be heard at intervals.

$ll the time the picture was growing surely, swiftly' he worked through to the end, only stopping when it was a sub1ect where light and tide changed before he could get it all in, and two =goes= were necessary.

!ary /ewbold %atterson (ale, in The

orld Today ,/ovember 45JD-.

John Singer Sargent ,4AKB745JK- painted watercolors almost his whole life and became one of the supreme masters of the medium. :orn in 0lorence to expatriate $merican parents who were obsessed with 2uropean culture, Sargent spent his childhood vagabonding around the #ontinent in his parents' unusual pursuit of vacation as education. ,(is father, a /ew 2ngland surgeon, taught him science' his mother, a neurasthenic artist, taught him culture and watercolor painting.- Sargent drew compulsively as a youth and was set on a painting career by age 4I. (e attended classes at the $cademy of 0ine $rts in 0lorence before enrolling in 4ADL ,at age 4A- at the %aris Mcole des :eaux $rts and in the workshop of the fashionable portrait painter #arolus78uran ,#harles 2mile 8uran, 4AIA7454D-. Sargent sailed to the ;nited States in 4ADB to establish his $merican citi)enship, but remained active in %aris for the next several years, submitting well received pictures to the annual %aris Salon, summering in /aples and #apri in 4ADA, studying the paintings of 8iego GelNsque) at the %rado !useum in !adrid ,Spain- in 4AD5 and those of 0rans (als in (olland in 4AAE, and made the acquaintance of #laude !onet in 4AA4. $t the 4AAL Salon he exhibited a provocative portrait of the decadent /ew .rleans beauty Girginie Fautreau ,under the title !adame O, 4AAL-. This created an absurd and embarrassing scandal + both critics and the model were offended + and as a result, partly at the urging of the $merican novelist (enry "ames, Sargent moved permanently to @ondon the next year, and in 4AAB moved permanently to the #helsea ,@ondon- studio formerly owned by the $merican painter "ames !c/eill histler. The scandal had damaged Sargent's reputation as a portrait painter, so he turned to landscapes painted in the plein air impressionist manner, and figure oils such as the poignantly saccharine #arnation, @ily, @ily, 9ose ,4AAK7AB-, one of the most striking studies of twilight ever painted. 8uring a year long trip to the ;S$ ,:oston and /ew *ork- in 4AAD7AA, he completed nearly forty society portrait commissions, and his fortunes completely revived in 4A5J with his splendid and touching portrait of @ady $gnew of @ochnaw, a painting that clinched his election to the 9oyal $cademy the same year. In 4A5E and 454B he accepted several of important mural commissions on religious themes for public buildings in :oston and #ambridge ,;S$-, which he worked on from 4A54 until his death. 8uring the next three decades Sargent was one of the first =global commuters,= traveling frequently between @ondon, :oston, /ew *ork and %aris, with annual vacations in Italy or Spain, and mural research trips to 2gypt, Syria and %alestine. ,$s 9obert (ughes said, =his homeland was his talent.=- (e became one of the most admired painters of the era, by far the most sought after society portrait painter, and one of the wealthiest artists of his time. (e was elected to the ;S$ /ational $cademy of 8esign and to full membership in the 2nglish 9oyal $cademy in 4A5D, received the 0rench @Hgion d'(onneur in 4AA5, won many exhibition medals and pri)es, and published a photogravure collection of BJ paintings in 45EI. $t this time criticism of his work as elitist, conservative and academic began to appear, emanating primarily from the minor 2nglish painters 9oger 0ry and alter Sickert. 0rom 45ED Sargent substantially limited his portrait commissions ,offering quick charcoal sketches instead- in order to complete his mural pro1ects and to pursue his favorite recreations + traveling with friends and watercolor painting. $ large show of his late watercolors in /ew *ork #ity in 45E5 led to substantial acquisitions of these works by the :rooklyn !useum ,45E5-, the !useum of 0ine $rts, :oston ,454J-, the !etropolitan !useum of $rt, /ew *ork ,4544-, and the orcester $rt !useum ,454D-. These watercolors, completed during extended summer vacations and mural working trips, are snapshots of immediate experience + the canals of Genice, $lpine pastures and cottages, hiking siestas and afternoon meals, villa parks and fountains, rock quarries, fishing streams, 0lorida alligators and :edouin tribes. !any of the models who appear in these paintings were family members, fellow artists and lifelong companions. (is cousin !ary (ale observed, =.ther travelers wrote their diaries, he painted his.=

In my world, Sargent is among the greatest watercolor painters and the most underestimated painter of the 45th century. Technically there was nothing he could not do, that goes without saying. :ut 1udgments that he was superficial, conventional or facile are utterly stupid.

Sargent used his brilliant technique to explore a uniquely modern artistic theme& time and sub1ective perception. In his mature paintings, he continually demonstrates the constructive and sketchy nature of our visual experience by the device of creating cohesive, detailed and convincing visual images from distinct, individuali)ed brushstrokes.

The problems of perception and visual illusions were foremost in the debates at the turn of the JEth century among psychologists in $merica and the #ontinent, and it is impossible to appreciate Sargent's ambition + and he was extraordinarily ambitious + without placing his technique in that context. (ere, for example, are observations from illiam "ames's %rinciples of %sychology ,4A5E-&

e are constantly selecting certain of our sensations as realities and degrading others to the status of signs of these. hen we get one of the signs we think of the reality signified' and the strange thing is that then the reality ... is so interesting that it acquires an hallucinatory strength, which may even eclipse that of the relatively uninteresting sign and entirely divert our attention from the latter. ... Thus the faintest sensations will give rise to the preception of definite things if only they resemble those which the things are wont to arouse. ... The sense of sight, as we have seen in studying Space, is pregnant with illusions. ... /o sense gives such fluctuating impressions of the same ob1ect as sight does. ith no sense are we so apt to treat the sensations immediately given as mere signs' with none is the invocation from memory of a thing, and the consequent perception of the latter, so immediate. ... It is this incessant reduction of our optical ob1ects to more =real= forms which has led some authors into the mistake of thinking that the sensations which first apprehend them are originally and natively of no form at all. 3=Sensation= and =The %erception of 'Things'=, passim6

The implicit critique, in the last sentence, of the homogenous divisions deployed by Seurat or Signac clarifies Sargent's unique focus& identifying by the accumulation of single brushstrokes the minimal arrangement of signs necessary to produce a completely convincing reality.

!ost stupefying is Sargent's ability to overcome the technical difficulties imposed by this challenge across hundreds of surviving works.

watercolor artists

The Sargent in Italy exhibition ,which I saw in 8enver in JEEI- provided several excellent examples, among them The !oraine ,right, top-. $ll the published images are hideously skewed toward a false brownish light' I have tried to retrieve the correct balance of brilliant whites woven into shades and glowing tints of cerulean, ultramarine, umber, sienna and ochre. Seen from several feet away, the painting creates a lively, almost photographically literal image of a granite scree, with every rock particulari)ed in astonishing detail and with a perfectly 1udged range of values + from the skylit mountain pass in the background to the glaringly sunlit rock textures and sharply contrasted rock shadows in the foreground. :ut when seen from a distance of a few inches, the rocks astonishingly dissolve into partially overlapping and seemingly random brushstrokes laid over a puckered ground ,right, bottom-.

This kind of loose, illusionistic brushwork has a long ancestry, as far back as 9ubens or Titian. :ut Sargent stands apart from his predecessors in two crucial respects& his brushwork coheres perceptually into a strong ,almost photographicrealism, and the brushwork is always locally analytical.

ith !onet's late waterlily paintings, for example, there is little difference between a square inch of canvas and the entire pond + the lossy brushwork creates a lossy image. ,9ichard Taylor has demonstrated that this constant fractal complexity across different areas of a painting is a consistent feature of "ackson %ollock's paintings.- In contrast, Sargent creates a convincing image and wealth of detail from what seems on close inspection to be completely inadequate means& the two levels of view are fundamentally different. The connection between them is the perceptual act.

Sargent is unrivalled in his ability to build convincing ob1ect perceptions from separate brush signs, and to create apparent details through the force of broad effects. ith many Impressionist painters, as with 9ubens or $bstract 2xpressionists such as %ollock or "oan !itchell, there is a recogni)able sense of groping& by daub, dribble or smear, one similar mark on top of the next, the painter finally approximates the desired overall effect. .ther painters ,Gan Fogh, Seurat or Signac- take the opposite extreme and carve out their paintings with thousands of distinct, mechanically similar glyphs, whittling away at the bare canvas. Sargent never does either& every mark contributes a specific energy and perceptual connection.

I imagine that The !oraine was constructed much as two master go players lay their stones, shaping the final pattern from an intently tactical choice of individual moves& the si)e of the brush, the charge and viscosity of the paint, the weight and speed of the stroke, and the unique shape of the touch. @ight, form and surface texture are simultaneously captured in every stroke. /owhere is there evidence that wrist or arm fell into a mechanical, random or =gestural= approximation, even briefly. $ll details are illusory, created by the relationships among much coarser, individuali)ed signs. In my experience, no other painter has an equal skill + both in oils and watercolors + at conveying so much visual richness with such analytical means, creating light, color and form through the arrangement of visually sufficient yet superficial signs.

$ great number of Sargent's watercolors were made in Genice, whose mixture of light, water and picturesque architecture held an endless fascination for him. In these he meditates on the fleeting, flowing, insubstantial nature of reality through his images of water, facades, and effects of changing light. In addition, Genice provided the image of a disappearing past to anchor Sargent's unique focus on the flow of time. The imminent destruction of Genice from subsiding land and encroaching sea had been predicted since the 4AJE's, and during the Gictorian era Genice became a focus of preservationist efforts' but the Genetian aura of irreversible decay also symboli)ed for many 2uropeans the withering of traditional class and cultural distinctions that began with the revolutions of 4ALA. $gainst this backdrop of moldering stones and a vanishing past, Sargent looked for compositions that would convey a snapshot feel of immediacy and motion, as in the Santa !aria della Salute ,45EL, LBxKAcm-. !any of his watercolors were painted from a canal boat or a wharfside bench and dashed off with incredible speed and accuracy of brush. This painting shows, even in reduced si)e, Sargent's uncanny way of summari)ing forms and movement in calligraphic brushstrokes, and his tremendous ability to organi)e every aspect of a painting at first view and on location + what @loyd Foodrich called his =infallible eye and unerring hand.= (e worked easily and quickly, first using ruled pencil lines to block out the ma1or angles and edges, then blocking in general shapes and soft tonal variations wet in wet, and finally inserting sharper details as the paper dried, sometimes using white gouache for precise highlights. This church facade was one of Sargent's favorite architectural sub1ects, and the familiarity he obtained by painting it many times lets him suggest the

intricate ornamentation with a mystifying cloud of blobs and flecks. $n apparently solid impression dissolves into incoherent squiggles on closer inspection + most recogni)able in this painting as the marks that suggest coiled rope in the foreground prow, or the figures and tarp on the boat behind. The impression of accuracy and detail is created in large part by the carefully 1udged relationships across the whole image. The violet shape at the prow of the foreground boat helps to separate it from the browns of the barge behind it, and creates a satisfying resonance with the greens of the canal waters and the warm yellows of burlap and canvas. $ccents of umber help to resolve these complex shapes into separate boats on the waves, and to distinguish them from the neutral whites and grays of the slumping facade in the background. The slight tilt of the facades suggests that they are moving too, but in the much slower tempo of sinking foundations.

The !oraine ,c.45EAby "ohn Singer Sargent

detail of the painting

8uring his training under #arolus78uran, Sargent was taught the beauty of a subdued tonal palette ,in the style of the Spanish painter GelP)que)-, the correct ad1ustment and placement of values, and the directive to paint exactly what he saw. Sargent turned these dictums into a watercolor technique that produced poetry from the most trivial or happenstance sub1ects + he despised picturesque =views= almost as much as tourist crowds. .ne of the most affecting aspects of Sargent's paintings is the way they often present an image glimpsed during physical movement + a hike, a walk in a garden, a trip in a canal boat. The act of perception is highlighted by the transient content and viewpoint of these images. #orfu& The Terrace ,45E5, KIxLEcm- seems to be a sidelong glance during a late afternoon stroll& two weathered and almost toppled stone urns, a few trees, the slanting reddish light, and an obscured opening through the wall that suggests our feet are already turned in another direction, as if to pass this moment by. That opening hints at an alternative path that leads down through the trees toward a prospect of the sea, so a moment of choice seems captured as well. 0ormally the composition inverts the standard landscape design, placing the darkest values at the top of the image and the lightest values at the bottom. The modeling of the urns, the scarred texture of the white walls, the aerial perspective of the distant hills, the contrasted textures of olive leaf and pine needle, the backlit lightening of the leaves at upper right + all these observations are perfectly controlled to suggest that sad sunlit moment when the close of day reminds us of the inevitable passing of time and the limited choices we get to make in life. The color mixtures are especially complex across the middle section of the picture, helping to define the background vegetation and hori)ontal line of hills through the stark vertical pattern of the trees, and emphasi)ing the complex effects of light, which emanates from an unseen source and so resembles the inner glow of memory.

Sargent's vagabond childhood instilled in him a lifelong love of travel, and despite the large girth he acquired in later years he was always an energetic walker and mountain hiker. (e was characteristically a painter of summer daylight and clear air& Turner's twilight, snow, fog and storms do not figure in his works. The many paintings he completed during summer excursions through the Italian $lps show his companions reading, sleeping, or + as in

Simplon %ass& the Tease ,4544, LExKJcm- + in the conversational play that swirls among companions resting after a strenuous climb. The Simplon route between Feneva and northern Italy had been a picturesque commonplace for watercolorists since the early 45th century, but Sargent ignores the the grand mountain scenery to focus on his companions in the hike. Technically, Sargent's paintings are always delightful and instructive to study for the seemingly endless variations in brushstrokes they contain ,compare, for example, the squirmy brownish lines across the middle dress with the energetic violet slashes across the other, or the densely thatched texture of the righthand bush with the looser texture of the background-. The mauve shadows and ochre highlights of the hiking dresses mix into a variety of lovely grays, bathed in pale viridian from the backlit umbrella, and contrasted against the rapid green outlines of shrub and background hillside, each handled with a different manner of brush and pigment. This painting also shows us Sargent's deep human sympathy, perhaps his greatest strength as a portrait painter. #radled in the center are two familiar faces, captured with a delightful simplicity and accuracy of touch& his young and impish niece 9ose !arie .rmond ,who holds up an annoying insect- and the matronly %olly :ernard + one of the child models Sargent had painted in #arnation, @ily, @ily, 9ose over twenty five years before.

8espite the apparently casual viewpoint of Sargent's watercolors, photographs and contemporary accounts show that he carefully selected the poses and settings for his paintings, and worked on them with intense concentration and rapid pace. The intimate and fleeting effect is the result of great craft, not inconvenient circumstances. Sargent's watercolors repay careful study for their remarkable brush technique, minimal palettes, beautiful color harmonies, perfectly 1udged tonal values, infallible sense of composition, and for his ability to capture the durable facts of the world in a way that highlights the poignant transience of perception and human existence.

,I've posted on a separate page some contemporary accounts of Sargent's painting methods and teaching methods.-

In the past few decades, Sargent's watercolors have risen substantially in critical appreciation& they are no longer seen as mere doodlings, conservative and escapist, that the artist was content to give away. 0or painters, the essential volume is $merican 8rawings and atercolors in the !etropolitan !useum of $rt& "ohn Singer Sargent ,!etropolitan !useum of $rt /ew *ork, JEEE- by Stephanie (erdrich and (. :arbara einberg, which reproduces every painting and drawing in the !et's superlative collection, with an brief essay on Sargent's materials and technique by !ar1orie Shelley. Sargent $broad& 0igures and @andscapes by arren $delson Q 9ichard .rmond ,$bbeville %ress, 4555- puts the watercolors in the context of Sargent's other works after 45EE, when he cut back his work on society portraits to focus on paintings outdoors' unfortunately there are too many poorly focused, badly cropped or badly imbalanced color reproductions. Trevor 0airbrother's "ohn Singer Sargent& The Sensualist ,*ale ;niversity %ress, JEEE- is a mixed bag& a welcome and thoughtful reappraisal of Sargent's achievement and methods, it attributes Sargent's =sensuality= to his rumored homosexuality rather than to his brilliant and ama)ingly self directed talent. #arl @ittle's The atercolors of "ohn Singer Sargent ,;niversity of #alifornia %ress, 455A- in paperback offers a generous sampling of all his watercolor themes, in good reproductions, with informative captions and text. 0inally, the multivolume and lavishly illustrated catalog raisonnH of Sargent's works has finally begun to cover his landscape and figure watercolors& see 9ichard .rmond and 2laine ?ilmurray ,editors-, "ohn Singer Sargent& 0igures and @andscapes 45DL74AAJ. #omplete %aintings Golume IG. ,*ale ;niversity %ress, JEEB-.