John Singer Sargent (A-M): 515+ Realist Paintings - Realism, Impressionism

JOHN SINGER SARGENT A-M Art Book contains 515+ Reproductions of Impressionist and Realist portraits, landscapes, and seascapes with annotations and biography.

(Due to the large number of paintings produced by Sargent, this volume contains his A-M titles only. See volume II for titles N-Z with 500 more images.)

The life of artist John Singer Sargent was one full of contradictions. An American, he was born in Florence, Italy, to expatriate parents FitzWilliam and Mary Sargent. Called “the leading portrait painter of his generation”, portraits were not necessarily his favorite subject, his preference being for landscapes and architectural themes. Working when Impressionism and Cubism were on the rise, Sargent painted with exquisite Realism, bringing to mind the grand masters he studied such as Gainsborough, Tintoretto, Velasquez, and Degas. And finally, the work he considered “…the best thing I have ever done,” was a portrait that when initially exhibited received such a negative reaction that it likely prompted him to move from Paris to London. Yet somehow in the midst of all this contradiction, perhaps even because of it, his work is dazzling.

Sargent’s childhood was, to say the least, unusual. His parents left the United States in 1854, for the health of his mother, who suffered a breakdown after the death of their first daughter, at age two. Although the move to Europe was always labeled temporary, they never returned to live in America. Based in Paris, they were nomadic in Europe, constantly moving–again, for reasons of health. They sought temperate climates at all seasons of the year, traveling between the seashore and the mountains. Stopped in Florence because of a cholera epidemic, John was born on what is traditionally accepted to be January 12, although his father, writing home to American relatives, allowed it might have been the 11th, or even the 10th.

Due to their unsettled lifestyle, John’s education was necessarily sporadic. He had occasional tutors, but most of his learning came from lessons with his father, as well as his mother’s dedication to exposing him to the fine museums and cathedrals in the various places to which they traveled. His parents both showed artistic talent. His father, an eye doctor, was a gifted medical illustrator, and his mother a fine amateur artist who provided her son with sketchbooks and drawing pencils during a time when artistic talent wasn’t often encouraged. At age 13 she would say of him, “John sketches quite nicely… If we could afford to give him really good lessons, he would soon be quite a little artist.” (Continued)