The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Sargent, John Singer

SARGENT, John Singer, American painter: b. of American parents, Florence, Italy, 1856. He was educated in Italy, France and Germany, and received his early art training under Carolus Duran. He was elected member of the Royal Academy of England in 1891 and of the National Academy of Design, New York, in 1897. He has lived abroad all his life and has never spent more than a year in the country of his parents. Having had the advantage of being chosen by Carolus Duran as an assistant in the execution of important government commissions, he thoroughly mastered the secrets of French technique before adopting a method and style which are purely his own. His chief works are in portrait and genre. Among his portraits may be mentioned that of ‘Carolus Duran’; ‘General Leonard Wood’; ‘Mr. Joseph Jefferson’; ‘Major Francis Lee Higginson’; ‘Homer Saint Gaudens’; ‘President Roosevelt’; ‘Henry G. Marquand’; ‘William M. Chase’; ‘Carmencita’; ‘Ada Rehan.’ His genres include ‘Fishing for Oysters at Cancale’; ‘Neapolitan Children Bathing’; ‘El Jaleo.’ His most ambitious and original works, however, are the decorations in the Boston Library, which include the now famous ‘Frieze of the Prophets.’ As a painter his manner is French in brilliant versatility and epigram, but his treatment infinitely superior to the millinery effects of Duran and his school. His portraits reflect clearly the characteristics of his sitter and his intuition is unerring in detecting the subtilest traits of individuality. As a specimen of his wall-painting we may cite that portion of the Boston Library decorations known as the ‘Dogma of the Redemption.’ It is divided into an upper and a lower panel which would seem to represent Heaven and Earth severally. In the upper panel are the three persons of the Trinity enthroned, with hands raised in blessing, the Father wearing the triple crown, or tiara; each enrobed in a flowing, cope-like garment. In the centre of this picture is set up the cross on which Christ is suffering, while Adam and Eve catch in chalices of gold the blood that drips from his hands. Below the foot of the cross is the pelican, symbol of self-sacrificing love. Above the arms of the cross runs the inscription Remissa sunt peccata mundi (“The sins of the world have been remitted”). Across the molding which separates the two divisions of the subject is a monkish distich.

	Factus homo factor hominis, factique redemptor, Redimo, corporeus corpora, corda deus.
(I, man's maker, now made man, and redeemer of him I made, God in flesh, redeem all human hearts and bodies.)

In the lower panel are angels bearing the instruments of the passion, namely, the reed, the nails, the spear, the pillar of scourging and the scourge, the crown of thorns and the ladder. The work has all the pomp and dignity of Byzantine conventionalism, and for richness of color and splendor of arrangement is one of the most impressive of this magnificent series. It is deeply devotional in tone and must be looked upon as among the finest Christian painting of the period. In 1910 Sargent practically abandoned portraiture for landscapes and genre subjects. Among his later oil paintings are ‘The Weavers’ (1913); ‘Cypresses and Pines’ and ‘The Courtyard’ (1914). A notable exhibition of his water-color drawings was held in London and New York in 1912, from which the Boston Museum acquired 45 and the Brooklyn Museum 83 examples.