52. JOHN SINGER SARGENT: A SPACE BETWEEN ART AND FASHION.
Sargent and Fashion - Tate Britain - LONDON.
John Singer Sargent, Polly Barnard, 1885, sketch for ‘Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose’, 1885-6. Tate.
The bobbing of paper lanterns and the witnessing of a swarm of tiny unfurlings - illuminating the glosses of lilies - popped open, the micro parasols - weighted in pollen, sticky with scent. And the roses, abundant and scattering of their harvest of petals - delicate and a chatter with brushstrokes gleaned from many gloamings.
An upstep of heel treading the violet dust of an imagined earth.
To capture cloth as if to listen to its very fibre - of impressions more akin to murmurings than definitions - lapping, pearlescence of a purring, bubbling calm.
His romance is to engulf, to suspend and to flush -
A corset laced so tightly - a bosom of blossoms - a fluttering of clementine ribbons - and yet the swathes of blacks, charcoals and ebonies envelope with descending cloaks of the impending.
John Singer Sargent, Sir Philip Sassoon, 1923, Oil on canvas, Tate.
Fashion - the audaciously tardy teenager - lost within their love of the fleeting, the door-slamming demands for attention and the special treatments negotiated for the rewards of such mysterious beauty and eternal youth - where the alignment of silhouette, fabrication, and atmospheric timing play a poker match of tactility.
John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Mrs Leopold Hirsch 1902, Oil on canvas, lent from a private collection.
And to art - somehow nobler, wiser and calmer? And so, more reliable and respected? And because of this, somehow more bankable even controllable? John Singer Sargent dares to occupy both trade traits with the fascinating directness of not just the artist but the art director - who employs, even tames the perfected technique to present and seduce without conceptual weight. As then and now, Sargent's target audience is consumer lead and in so doing he protects a legacy as a creator and also as a service industry - a bridge between two industries - where every subject surely leaves a happy customer. However, as with trends of technique rooted in time, the shelf life can form an obstacle when viewed in retrospect.
It is this, the often overt impression of fashionable success that Sargent perpetuates through his work - that somehow falls foul of the art world’s cardinal oath of a confessional truth confided by the noble artisan who suffers alone, and for all the implied champagne cork pops of Sargent’s atmospheric belle époques - it is sometimes hard to follow the script. His subjects do not appear to depict the dour, devoted disciples of faith as the jeweled-toned clouds of Titian's subjects suggest or the patron saints of the noble as favored by Velasquez - Sargent dares to centre his illuminating brushes not on celebrating faith but instead on fashioning celebrity, utilising the techniques of the brotherhood of artisans who proceed him, and this is his conceptual provocation.
Viewing these works today - Sargent’s ability to seemingly weigh hearts against feathers - feels faux - deep down, as he entertains with a classism that is loaded for the loaded, exclusive, and excluding, as all great fashion is - unforgiving and tailor-made to flatter the benefactor alone, however admired. Conceptually provocative when considering the means for which some such Victorian fortunes were amassed, who patronised Sargent’s ability to render his subjects as meaningful even iconic. This bookable Midas touch, entertains - but does not, fully convince - to modern eyes perplexed and weary of news-stories whose heroines do not have the choice to wear their hearts on such haute couture sleeves.
And yet, just as the great fashion makers know, it is in the juxtaposition that the tension, the catalysts for change lives. Sargent is surely a signaling influencer to each of the societal tastemakers who follow his legacy, in the camp of Cecil Beaton's charm, in the noble stature of Richard Avendon's knowing reduction and in the impossible drama of Annie Leibovitz's filmic knowledge of the jarring - a lynchpin in a style, which defines modern portraiture.
Jean Philippe Worth for House of Worth, Woman's Evening Dress, around 1895. Silk damask. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Mrs. J. D. Cameron Bradley.
Sargent and Fashion - Tate Britain Until 7th July 2024.