John Singer Sargent

Art and Common Sense

“Sargent studying under the wing of Carolus-Duran, was in an atmosphere sympathetic to new ideas, but not at all inhospitable to old ones. While he emerged from his master’s studio a modern in the best sense of the term, it was with a vein of conservatism in him which has never disappeared. Of how many modern painters, endowed, as he has been, superabundant technical brilliance, could it be said that they have never exceeded a certain limit of audacity? I know of no canvas of his which could fairly be called sensational. One of the least conventional of painters, his art nevertheless remains adjusted to the tone and movement of the world in which he lives—surely a fine example of genius expressing its age.

“People complain that Sargent violates the secret recesses of human vanity, and brings hidden, because unlovely, traits out into the light of day; that his candor with the brush is startling, to say the least, and sometimes even perilous. He is accused not simply of painting his sitter, ‘wart and all,’ but of exaggerating the physical or moral disfigurement. If this is true there is something humorous in the spectacle, which is constantly being presented, of men and women running the risk.... Few of his sitters, seem, as we see them on the canvas, to have been passive in his hands. The electric currents of a duel are in the air. Character has thrown down its challenge, the painter has taken it up, and the result is a work in which character is fused with design, playing its part in the artistic unit as powerfully, and almost as vividly, as any one of the tangible facts of the portrait.

“In the light of the long procession of portraits which he has put to his credit, it seems to me that if there is a living painter in whose interpretations of character confidence can be placed, it is Sargent. His range is apparently unlimited. He has painted men and women in their prime and in their old age, and in whatever walk of life he has found them, he has apprehended them with the ‘seeing eye’ that is half the battle.... It is worth noticing that it is not his portraits of men, but in his portraits of women, who illustrate far more histrionically the nervous tension of the age, that Sargent has painted his most unconventional compositions. When his subject has permitted him to exchange nervousness for repose, with what felicity he has seized his opportunity! There is not in modern portraiture a more satisfactory study in dignity and noble stateliness than his ‘Mrs. Marquand.’ (Shown in this exhibition)

“Sargent is himself in his reading of character in his design, and in his style. To say this is not to forget his indebtedness, where style is concerned, to other painters, even, Carolus-Duran. I think there is something of Carolus-Duran in his mere cleverness which like so much that is fluent and self-possessed in modern craftsmanship, could have been developed in Paris and nowhere else. The broad slashing stroke of Hals has taught him something, it is fair to assume; and the influence of Velasquez in his work is sufficiently obvious. Yet there is not in all his painting the ghost of what it would be reasonable to call an imitative passage. He is no more a modern Hals or Velasquez than he is a modern Rembrandt or Botticelli, for he looks at life and art from a totally different point of view, not simply, or grandly, or tragically, or imaginatively, but with the detached intellectual curiosity of a man of the world.”

American Painting and Its Traditions

“Sargent did not wholly achieve art, for some of it was born to him, and some of it, perhaps, was thrust upon him. Training started him right, but his great success is not wholly due to that. Genius alone can account for the remarkable content of his work.

“Sargent’s life has been the result of peculiar circumstances—fortunate circumstances some may think; unfortunate others may hold. At least they have been instrumental in bringing forth an accomplished painter whose art no one can fail to admire. That his work may be admired understandingly it is quite necessary to comprehend the personality of the artist—to understand his education, his associations, his artistic and social environments. For if the man himself is cosmopolitan his art is not less so. It is the perfection of world-style, the finality of method.

“If I apprehend Sargent rightly, such theory of art as he possesses is founded in observation. Some fifteen years ago, in Gibraltar, at the old Cecil Hotel, I was dining with him. That night, as a very unusual thing, Sargent talked about painting—talked of his own volition. He suggested his theory of art in a single sentence: ‘You see things that way’ (pointing slightly to the left) ‘and I see them this way’ (pointing slightly to the right). He seemed to think that would account for the variation or peculiarity of eye and mind, and with a manner of doing—a personal method—there was little more to art. Such a theory would place him in measured agreement with Henry James whose definition of art has been quoted many times: ‘Art is a point of view, and a genius a way of looking at things.’

“A painter who has been looking at human heads for many years sees more than the man who casually looks up to recognize an acquaintance on the street. I do not mean that he sees more ‘character’—that is more scholarship or conceit, or pride of purse or firmness of will or shrewdness of thought, but merely that he sees the physical conformation more completely than others do. Every one sooner or later moulds his own face. It becomes marked or set or shaped in response to continued methods of thinking and acting. When that face comes under the portrait painter’s eye, he does not see the scholar, the banker, the senator, the captain of industry; but he does see perhaps, certain depression of the cheek or lines about the eyes or mouth in contractions of the lips or protrusions of the brow or jaw that appeal to him strongly because they are cast in shadow or thrown up sharply in relief of light. These surface features he paints perhaps with more emphasis than they possess in the original because they appeal to him emphatically, and presently the peculiar look that indicates the character of the man appears. What the look may indicate, or what kind of phase of character may be read in or out of the look, the portrait-painter does not know or care. He paints what he sees and has as little discernment of a character as of a mind. He gives, perhaps, without knowing their meaning, certain protrusions and recessions of the surface before him and lets the result tell what it may. In the production of the portrait accurate observation is more than half the battle. If a painter sees and knows his subject thoroughly, he will have little trouble in telling what he sees and knows; and to say of Sargent that he observes rightly and records truly is to state the case in a sentence.”

OIL PAINTINGS

WATER COLORS

15

32 Portrait of Mrs. Charles E. Inches

Loaned by Mrs. Inches, Boston

16

41 Portrait of Mrs. Henry White—neé Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford

Loaned by Honorable Henry White

17

11 Portrait of Mrs. Fiske Warren and Daughter

Loaned by Fiske Warren, Esq.

18

31 Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Field

Loaned by Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

19

9 Portrait of Miss Mary Elizabeth Garrett

Loaned by Johns Hopkins University

20

7 Portrait of President Lowell

Loaned by Harvard University

21

6 Portrait of Ex-President Charles W. Eliot, Formerly of Harvard University

Loaned by Harvard University

22

58 Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes

Loaned by Mr. Phelps Stokes

23

2 The Lady with the Rose—My Sister (1882)

Loaned by Mrs. Hadden

24

5 Portrait of Major Higginson

Loaned by Harvard University

25

59 Portrait of Mrs. Marquand

Loaned by Mr. Alan Marquand

26

33 Portrait of Mrs. Adrian Iselin

Loaned by Miss Iselin

27

30 Portrait of Miss Ada Rehan

Loaned by Mrs. G. M. Whitin

28

29 Portrait of John Hay, Esq.

Loaned by Mr. Clarence L. Hay

29

10 Portrait of Mrs. J. William White

Loaned by Mrs. White

30

50 Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Lincoln Manson

Loaned by Mrs. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer

31

22 Sketch of Mrs. Augustus Hemenway

Loaned by Mrs. Hemenway

32

18 Reconnoitering

Loaned by Mr. Sargent

33

8 Lake O’Hara

Loaned by Fogg Art Museum

34

14 His Studio

Loaned by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

35

51 Moorish Courtyard

Loaned by Mr. James H. Clarke

36

17 Head of Joseph Jefferson

Loaned by Mr. Sargent

37

19 Portrait of Joseph Pulitzer, Esq.

Loaned by Mrs. Pulitzer

38

36 Portrait of General Leonard Wood

Loaned by General Wood

39

1 Portrait of Mrs. H. F. Hadden (1878)

Loaned by Mrs. Hadden

40

34 The Honorable Mrs. Frederick Guest

Loaned by Mrs. Phipps

41

23 Portrait of Edward Robinson, Esq.

Loaned by Mr. Robinson

42

42 Sketch of Mrs. Henry White—neé Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford

Loaned by Honorable Henry White

43

45 Portrait of Homer Saint-Gaudens and Mother

Loaned by Mrs. Saint-Gaudens

44

35 Portrait of Mrs. Phipps and Winston Loaned by Mrs. Phipps

45

20 Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis

Loaned by Mr. Livingston Davis, Boston

46

43 Portrait of Mrs. John J. Chapman

Loaned by Mrs. Richard Aldrich

47

37 The Sulphur Match

Loaned by Mr. Louis Curtis

Facts Concerning This Exhibition

Pat. 3233 Flemish Gothic 17th Century

Pat. 3215 Italian 16th Century

Pat. 3014 Flemish Gothic 16th Century

50

Pat. 1877 Spanish 18th Century

Pat. 3455 Spanish 16th Century

Pat. 1751 Spanish 17th Century

Pat. 3095 Spanish 16th Century

In the year 1721 in a small Flemish village lived Grieve, a famous maker of masterful picture frames; whose sole ambition was to please the tastes of the great painters of his time.

The best mid-eighteenth century frames were made by him and his disciples. Grieve was the first to conceive the possibilities in his chosen field and to realize that a painting to be rightly appreciated had to be surrounded by a frame chosen artistically and with due regard to the effect of the painting on the spectator and of the whole as a work of art.

Neither chance nor fashion entered into their construction. On the contrary, they were the result of a distinctive aesthetic sentiment for the beautiful in conjunction with an almost scientific appreciation of what would enhance the intelligent understanding of the picture.

The demand at that time was so insistent that Grieve was obliged to teach the tedious task of gilding and wood-carving to the members of his immediate family; from that moment began this great family of frame makers.

Not content with their conquest in Belgium, the Grieves moved to London, which offered them a larger opportunity, and established there a still more progressive branch of the parent institution.

As is the case with all progressives, they were constantly on the watch for new fields to conquer and as America seemed particularly inviting, M. Grieve the youngest of the family, moved to New York and established the largest hand-carved wood frame factory in the world.

The Grieve of old still lives, and the sacred flame which he kindled is still kept burning by the single American representative of this great family of frame makers.

The American Grieve has progressed with the times. He has revolutionized the ancient art of his forefathers to conform with the demands of modern times; he has perfected a method of manufacturing through quantity production the same quality of art frames which the Grieves before him carved out laboriously at considerable expense.

Painted by G. Morland      FOX HUNTING      Engraved by E. Bell

KENNEDY & CO., 693 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

(Successors to H. Wunderlich & Co.)

FINE OLD ENGLISH COLOR PRINTS OF

Sporting, Hunting, Shooting and Naval Subjects

RARE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PRINTS

FINE ETCHINGS BY OLD AND MODERN MASTERS

Important Exhibition

WATER COLOR DRAWINGS

By FRANK W. BENSON

and RARE TRIAL PROOFS

OF HIS

ETCHINGS AND DRY-POINTS

EARLY CHINESE ART

Swelling ovoid-shaped Vase of light buff pottery, having its two loop handles at the base of the neck connected by a collar. The opalescent glaze of old turquoise-blue is minutely crackeled and encrusted with reddish earth. The lip, which has been broken, is encased in a copper band. The glaze completely covers the vase, including the base, which is slightly concave. The form of this jar is truly noble and the beauty of its glaze is impossible to describe. Persian influence on Chinese art is here especially noticeable, for this specimen might easily be taken for a fine piece of Rakka ware. Tang Dynasty: 618–906 A. D. Height: 13 inches. Greatest diameter: 10 inches.

Parish-Watson & Co. inc.

560 Fifth Avenue

New York

Old Chinese Porcelains and Sculptures Archaic Chinese Bronzes and Jade Rare Persian Faience

Charles Scribner’s Sons Fifth Avenue, New York

A Group of Notable Books on Art

REMBRANDT AND HIS SCHOOL. By Prof. John C. Van Dyke. Limited to 1,200 copies	$12.00
EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY. The Record of His Life and Work. By E. V. Lucas. 200 illus. 2 vols.	$30.00
AMERICAN ARTISTS. By Royal Cortissoz. Illustrated	$3.00
NEW GUIDES TO OLD MASTERS (The Galleries of Europe). By Prof. John C. van Dyke.
LONDON—National Gallery, Wallace Collection. $1.25. PARIS—Louvre. $1.25
AMSTERDAM—Rijks Museum; THE HAGUE—Royal Gallery; HAARLEM—Hals Museum. $1.25
ANTWERP—Royal Museum; BRUSSELS—Royal Museum. $1.25
MUNICH—Old Pinacothek; FRANKFORT—Staedel Institute; CASSEL—Royal Gallery. $1.25
BERLIN—Kaiser Friedrich Museum; DRESDEN—Royal Gallery. $1.25
VIENNA—Imperial Gallery; BUDAPEST—Museum of Fine Arts. $1.25

The Universal Art Series

Each volume profusely illustrated

LANDSCAPE PAINTING. By C. Lewis Hind	$8.50
Vol. I. From Giotto to Turner.
MODERN MOVEMENTS IN PAINTING. By Charles Marriott	$7.50
DESIGN AND TRADITION. By Amos Fenn	$8.50
THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION. By E. J. Sullivan	$8.50
SCULPTURE OF TO-DAY. By Kineton Parkes
Vol I. America, Great Britain, Japan	$8.50
Vol. II. Continent of Europe	$9.50

General History of Art Series

Each volume is written by a representative authority and contains between 500 and 600 illustrations, reproduced from carefully selected originals.

$3.00 each

ART IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. By Sir Walter Armstrong

ART IN NORTHERN ITALY. By Dr. Corrado Ricci

ART IN FRANCE. By G. Maspero

ART IN FLANDERS. By M. Max Rooses

ART IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. By Marcel Dieulafoy

Classics of Art Series

A library of art specially distinguished by profuseness and completeness of illustration, in full-page plates.

CHARDIN. By Herbert E. A. Furst. 45 plates	$7.00
DONATELLO. By Maud Cruttwell. 81 plates	$6.25
FLORENTINE SCULPTORS OF THE RENAISSANCE. By Wilhelm Bode, Ph.D.	$6.00
LAWRENCE. By Sir Walter Armstrong. 41 plates	$6.50
MICHELANGELO. By Gerald S. Davies. 126 plates	$7.50
RAPHAEL. By A. P. Oppe. 200 plates	$7.50
REMBRANDT ETCHINGS. With 330 examples. By A. M. Hind. 2 vols.	$12.00
ROMNEY. By A. B. Chamberlain. 72 plates	$7.00
TINTORETTO. By Evelyn March Phillipps. 61 plates	$6.25
TITIAN. By Charles Ricketts. 181 plates	$9.75
TURNER. By A. Finberg. 100 plates	$6.00
VELASQUEZ. By A. de Berutte. 94 plates	$7.50

Contemporary British Artists

Edited by Arthur Rutherston

Each volume with about 35 plates. $2.00 each

GEORGE CLAUSEN

AUGUSTUS JOHN

PAUL NASH

WILLIAM ORPEN

WILLIAM NICHOLSON

WILLIAM ROTHENSTEIN

Two Books on Oriental Art

JAPANESE COLOUR PRINTS

By Laurence Binyon and J. J. O’Brien Sexton

With 16 plates in color and 28 in half-tone, illustrating more than 50 prints $25.00

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF CHINESE PAINTING

By Arthur Waley, Assistant in the British Museum. With 50 plates $20.00

The

Scribner Bookstore

for Rare Books

on the Fine Arts

Rare and unusual volumes on American, English, Continental, and Oriental painters and paintings, such as:

THE WORK OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT. With an introductory note by Alice Meynell

Bode’s COMPLETE WORK OF REMBRANDT

Armstrong’s GAINSBOROUGH

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. By Walter Armstrong

Petrucci, ENCYCLOPÉDIE DE LA PEINTURE CHINOISE

Michel, HISTOIRE DE L’ART 12 volumes

Scribner Books at All Bookstores.

All Books at the Scribner Bookstore

Fifth Avenue at Forty-eighth Street

JEAN FRANCOIS GROLIER

Master Printer of the Sixteenth Century

Compare the crude methods of printing used in the Sixteenth Century with the modern craftsmanship which enables us to produce a book of this character.

Chelsea 8053–54

The Grolier Craft Press

INCORPORATED

229 West 28th Street

NEW YORK CITY

1632—Princess of Orange by Nicholas Maes—1693

Ehrich Galleries

707 Fifth Avenue

At Fifty-fifth Street

New York

❦

Paintings by Old Masters

LINCOLN

MOTOR CARS

Cabriolet De Luxe
Body by Le Baron

THE LINCOLN GALLERIES

PARK AVENUE AT FORTY-SIXTH STREET

PARK CENTRAL MOTORS, Inc.

VANDERBILT 9761

MEMBER PARK AVENUE ASSOCIATION

STEINWAY

THE INSTRUMENT OF THE IMMORTALS

Occasionally the genius of man produces some masterpiece of art—a symphony, a book, a painting—of such surpassing greatness that for generation upon generation it stands as an ideal, unequaled and supreme. For more than three score years the position of the Steinway piano has been comparable to such a masterpiece—with this difference: A symphony, a book, a painting, once given to the world, stands forever as it is. But the Steinway, great as it was in Richard Wagner’s day, has grown greater still with each generation of the Steinway family. From Wagner, Liszt and Rubinstein down through the years to Paderewski, Rachmaninoff and Hofmann, the Steinway has come to be “the Instrument of the Immortals” and the instrument of those who love immortal music.

Steinway & Sons and their dealers have made it conveniently possible for music lovers to own a Steinway.

Prices: $875 and up, plus freight at points distant from New York.

STEINWAY & SONS, Steinway Hall, 109 E. 14th Street, New York

66

The paintings

in this exhibit are insured

under a

Fine Arts Policy

with the

Automobile

Insurance Company

of Hartford, Conn.

affiliated with

Aetna Life Insurance Company

Aetna Casualty and Surety Co.

ANTIQUE WORKS OF ART

Furniture Paintings

Portrait painted in 1884 by John S. Sargent

KIRKHAM & HALL

31 East 57th Street, New York

WILLIAM KIRKHAM GLENN HALL

“FOREST OF ARDEN” By ALBERT P. RYDER

From the A. T. Sanden Collection just acquired by Ferargil, Inc.

Offering the

American Masterpieces

By Albert Pinkham Ryder

Just transferred from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Together with important works by A. B. Davies, J. Alden Weir, Frank Duveneck, H. G. Dearth, Theodore Robinson, John H. Twachtman, George Inness, Robert Spencer and famous sculptors.

Exhibition of Works by Horatio Walker

February 16th until March 4th, 1924

Messrs. Price and Russell

607 FIFTH AVENUE

NEW YORK

Marie Sterner Albert Sterner

Under the direction of Marie Sterner (Mrs. Albert Sterner) The Art Patrons of America, Inc. will hold an Exhibition of American Paintings in London, Paris and Venice during the coming season.

Americans going abroad, it is hoped, will patronize this Exhibition. List of Patrons and other particulars upon request to Mrs. Muriel Boardman, Twenty-Two West Forty-Ninth Street, New York City.

Mrs. Wm. Payne Thompson, President

Mrs. Egerton L. Winthrop, Vice President

Mrs. Muriel Boardman, Secretary

Alaric Simson, Treasurer

Marie Sterner, Director

Kent-Costikyan

FOUNDED 1886

485 Fifth Avenue—Sixth Floor

New York

Opposite Public Library

❦

IMPORTERS

Antique and Modern Rugs

from

Persia, China, India and the Caucasus

❦

Rugs woven to order in Orient

Arden Studios, Inc. & Arden Gallery

Mrs. James C. Rogerson

599 FIFTH AVENUE

❦

Interior Furnishings and Decorations

❦

Wood Paneling and Painting—Period Furnishings

Hangings, Silks, Velvets, Cretonnes, Rugs, Carpets

Original Treatment of Walls and Ceilings

Painted Furniture from Exclusive Arden Designs

❦

Interesting exhibitions bearing educationally upon Decorating and Furnishing are held at frequent intervals in Art Gallery

Consultations with Mrs. Rogerson may be made by appointment

77