John Singer Sargent

An American artist, portrait painter and interior painter, who was born and lived most of his life in Europe.

Sargent was a talented portrait painter with world fame. Among his models, there are famous actors, writers, influential politicians and businessmen. Many of the artist’s works were criticized and not accepted by society. However, over time, Sargent received widespread recognition. He became a member of the National Academy in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and was awarded the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor in Paris. Exhibitions of the artist took place in major museums in Europe and the USA. He became a worldly famous classical painter.

Apart from painting, Sargent is known for his wall paintings. The frescoes of the Boston Public Library and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts were created by him at the turn of the XIX and ХX centuries.

Key ideas:

– John Singer Sargent is primarily known as a portrait painter. Spectacular full-length portraits, distinguished by a brilliant composition, the grace of careless poses, the refined elegance of the surroundings and costumes helped him to become famous and successful.

– The talent and poetic perception of the artist’s world were especially vividly manifested not in the “paintings to order”, but in the depiction of children playing in the garden, working friends of the artist, landscapes and genre scenes in the technique of watercolor.

– Sargent traveled extensively around Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East and repeatedly visited the United States. During the trips, the artist never stopped drawing, looking for special characters and depicting them on his canvases.

– By accepting the worldview of Impressionists and their expressive artistic means to some extent, Sargent embodied them in many of his portraits and landscapes. Women in white clothes, fluttering in the wind, landscapes filled with sunlight – all this appeared in the work of the painter thanks to Impressionism.