THE MODEL IS PRESENT
Is a portrait, in the end, about the subject, the artist, or the fragile connection between the two? Walking through the Met’s expansive exhibit Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, I saw works supporting every point of view. But my favorite portraits were those in the first gallery, of the men and women Sargent befriended when he was a student in Paris in the early 1880′s. These portraits are all about the subject.
They’re composed simply. In each one a handsomely-dressed man or woman sits at the center of the canvas, against a simple backdrop, and addresses the viewer directly. Sargent renders each of their faces with an extraordinary emotional acuity, showing just what the subject looks like, and also, right through this, who he or she really is. (The psychological depth does nothing to diminish the richness of the surface. Sargent’s brushstroke is virtuostic in capturing physical detail: a shadowed corner, a splash of sunlight, the finish of pink velvet, the glint of diamonds.)
From looking at these portraits we understand that the writer and translator Madame Allouard-Jouan is demanding, world-weary, and refined. We understand that playwright Edouard Pailleron is pragmatic, honest, and impatient. We understand, in Sargent’s most famous painting, that Madame X, (Amélie Gautreau) is self-conscious, petty and proud. And we understand, in the most magnificent painting in the exhibit, that Emile-Auguste Carolus-Duran, Sargent’s teacher, is intense, intelligent, and unorthodox. Though they follow formal conventions of Victorian portraiture, these works aren’t mannered. In their blunt expression of character, they are wild.
