John Singer Sargent (Full Length): Madame X and Dr. Pozzi

John Singer Sargent was the most successful Society Portrait painter of the Belle Époque,

and having ones portrait painted by him,

was seen as an indication of impeccable good taste,

and was a social achievement in and of itself.

In this episode I look at TWO paintings created by Sargent.

Two paintings united by a scandal.

One of them is of Dr Pozzi, a celebrated gynaecologist and Infamous ladies' man,

who was referred to by many of his clients

as "L'Amour Médicin" -

or "Dr Love".

At the time, Sargent's painting of Pozzi was criticized for the doctor's overtly sexual

swagger,

and gossips picked up on the painting's possible homoeroticism.

The other, Madam X, shows Virgine Gautreau, who like Dr Pozzi,

had a colourful love life, and is also shown in a provocative pose.

Sargent embedded both portraits with a salaciousness unseen in polite Society.

But was the public outcry because of the paintings?

Or because of the gossip that connected the sitters?

The paintings have been written about and discussed as separate works of art,

but instead of looking at them

as two separate paintings maybe it's time we talked about them

as a pair?

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence in 1856 to unconventional American parents who

had left their hometown of Boston,

Massachusetts, and lived their life as wealthy cultural Nomads in Europe.

Sargent's mother, an amateur artist, was a classic eccentric heiress,

dragging her semi-reluctant husband and children across Europe on an endless Grand Tour.

They lived in Florence, Venice, Rome, Sorrento, Naples, Lake Como, Lucerne, St.

Moritz, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Biarritz, Nice, Madrid, Seville, and Cadiz...

She made sure she captured every landscape and monument around them,

and hauled her children into every Museum

as soon as they were old enough to hold a pencil

or brush.

She hosted gatherings wherever they went - inviting everyone from poverty-stricken artists to American

expat millionaires.

She exposed Sergeant to Velasquez, Goya, Rembrandt, and many other artists,

who would later influence his own work.

Madame Sargent, was a powerful, self-assured and rather theatrical woman,

and Sargent would make a career out of painting iconic women just like her.

He showed an early aptitude for watercolours

and his mother encouraged his precocious

but astounding artistic talents by enrolling him in art classes.

Madame Sargent was determined to see her talented son rise through the ranks of

the great artists,

so she moved the entire family to the centre of the art World - Paris.

They arrived in Paris in 1874 when Sargent was 18,

just as the Impressionists were making their mark on the fussy French salon system.

He would be influenced by their loose gestural brushwork

and later he would become friends with Monet

and even paint him.

His mother arranged for him to study with the artist Carolus-Duran.

The young Sargent was impressed by THIS painting by his tutor

which had scandalised Parisian Society with its sexually suggestive dropped glove.

A scandal that 10 years later would be mirrored by the public reaction to

Madame X.

Sargent's virtuosity of technique was recognized immediately by Carolus-Duran,

who became the subject of Sargent's first major portrait,

he created at the age of just 23.

In this painting we already see the Sargent-esque touches we will see throughout his

career.

The skin tones are

so hyper-realistic and yet elsewhere his brush work is very loose

and abstract.

It is an extraordinary painting

that he showed at the Paris Salon of 1879 to almost Universal acclaim -

but Sargent would always have an ambiguous relationship with critics.

The Paris Salon was the most prestigious art exhibition in Europe.

It was an annual event organized by the French Academy of Fine Arts,

and was known for its strict and conservative jury selection process.

It was crucially important to a young artist,

and was a place where Sergeant could showcase his works to a wide audience

of art critics collectors

and the General Public.

The problem was - its size.

In 1884, the Salon was attended by three hundred thousand visitors

and showed five thousand Works,

stacked one on top of the other,

with only the best artists getting eye level placements.

They were also arranged together by a genre, so visitors saw hundreds of Landscapes,

and then hundreds of still lives, then history paintings, then portraits.

One after the other.

It was overwhelming - and extremely difficult for any painting to stand out.

Sargent understood this and knew

that he needed to produce something Sensational for the Salon to get their attention.

He knew that getting people talking about your paintings was good for business.

The very first time he entered a painting to the salon was in 1878

when he was just 22.

It was his first major success.

Singled out for its use of impressionistic brush Strokes.

By the time he entered THIS group portrait in 1883,

he was a celebrity artist

and this life-size painting established him

as a psychological Master.

Carolus-Duran encouraged his students to study the work of Diego Velázquez,

and with this painting Sargent produced a modern reimagining of Las Meninas

that was the talk of the salon.

Around this time he met Henry James, who was already an established writer,

while Sargent was a rising star in the art World,

James was a great champion of Sergeant whom he described in an article

as "Civilised to his fingertips".

Their relationship would be one of the most important and enduring of Sargent's life.

In 1884 he showed Madame X,

and this painting would create an even bigger sensation than previous entries

as well as a tabloid Frenzy.

Being a Portrait Painter is so much more than being a "skilled draftsman".

Sargent's exposure to a broad cultural education (via an eccentric route) meant

that in a stiff buttoned-up Victorian society,

the artist was a breath of fresh air.

He was dashing, fashionable, charming, and witty.

He spoke several languages, played the piano and was well-read.

He could hold conversations with English Kings and American Presidents,

he was close friends with composers and writers across the globe,

and he could gossip with Flamenco dancers and gondoliers - in their native language.

It was his personality

that gave him the ability to capture the essence of his subjects,

to extract their innermost secrets, regardless of their social status or background.

He would seduce them with his knowledge and wit.

Previously artists with a classical training would carefully plot their paintings.

They'd sometimes grid the canvas,

then draw outlines directly onto it - and paint section by section: Sky, sea,

mountains etc Sergeant's teacher Carolus-Duran changed all this

and taught his students to paint what they saw quickly looking at the subject

in terms of tonal values:

lights and darks - rather than using outlines.

Using halftones as a base, and adding highlights and accents, loosened up Sergeant Style.

Carolus- Duran encouraged his pupil to use a heavily loaded brush,

"wet-on-wet" in a technique known as "Alla Prima" or "Direct painting",

that encouraged a broad painterly Style.

None of this was new.

The Baroque painter Frans Hals was famous for using the Alla Prima technique.

The traditional method of painting a face onto a canvas,

was in three separate stages: In charcoal,

in thin colour wash and then in paint.

Sargent however went against the grain,

and used very little

if any under-drawing and created his portraits through a single application of paint in

one sitting applied in thick impasto.

By concentrating on the subject's tonal values,

a solid shape grows out of and into his half-tone background.

Sargent simplified everything and just focused on the shapes and tones of the head,

with no features or accents.

After establishing the larger shapes and masses in his composition,

he started working on the details in light and dark tones.

By establishing the middle tonal values first,

he could judge how light or dark the final accent should be.

It was a way of working not dissimilar to sculpting: Larger values first,

finer points last.

The result was a finished painting that looked fresh and spontaneous,

with fluent and easy brush work.

Getting to this seemingly spontaneous Point, required a lot of preparation.

He would paint many studies and sketch everything.

When he knew his subject well,

he was ready to start working on the actual canvas.

Sargent would place his canvas right next to the sitter,

rather than a few feet away as was standard.

He would then jump back and forth as he painted,

jab the canvas and jump back again,

continually viewing from a distance - both the sitter and his painting of them,

at the same time, at the same angle, and in the same light.

Cartoonists even made fun of his frenetic swordsman-like approach to attacking the canvas.

His brush and his grip were equally important to his loose style.

He held his brush towards the back,

almost like a conductor's baton (as we can see here),

which gives the brush a certain "spring".

He believed, you must draw with your brush

as readily as unconsciously

as you draw with your pencil,

and how you hold your brush affects how the paint is applied.

Close up, we see the jabbing and slashing of paint,

from both his dance-like movements AND the loose way of holding his brush.

The important things to Sargent were that once all the preparation was done,

he was familiar with the physicality and the personality of the sitter,

and all the structure and tones were in place,

THEN he was ready to attack the canvas "Alla Prima", in one sitting.

As if the painting magically sprang fresh from his brush...

When you study Sargent's paintings up close,

his thick visible brush strokes are quickly applied, and appear abstract or haphazard.

But seen from a distance, everything comes together perfectly in a realistic representation.

This is the key to Sargent's work and what differentiates him from the Impressionists.

While Sargent certainly used loose brushwork and was interested in the effects of light,

he did not always use these techniques in the same way.

The artist limited himself to using a palette of mostly neutral colours

and had no interest in the Impressionist obsession with colour theory.

Plus, of course, Sargent used the colour black - unlike the Impressionists.

He was just more interested in tonal values, and in the end accurate representation.

He may have used abstract brush strokes,

but he combined it with a hyper realism that the impressionists rejected.

It's hard to look at this painting without the feeling one is being seduced.

Samuel Jean Pozzi was one of the most fascinating and notorious men in Paris.

He was a 35-year-old "Gynaecologist to the Stars".

Good looking, dynamic, and charismatic in the extreme.

He was a married man with a family but he was also a womaniser,

infamous for his numerous affairs, including with the legendary actress Sarah Bernhard Bizet's Widow,

the poet Judith Gautier and several actresses and dancers.

He was described by the Princess of Monaco

as "disgustingly handsome" and by contemporaries

as a beautiful work of art himself.

It is as a prodigious lover we know him now,

thanks to the notoriety of Sargent's portrait,

but we mustn't forget

that Dr Pozzi was actually a brilliant 19th century Renaissance Man.

He was catapulted from provincial Bourgeois beginnings, to the upper echelons of Parisian society,

and rose quickly through the ranks, by his intelligence and charm.

He was a surgeon and a pioneering gynaecologist, a writer, an author,

and a translator.

He was an anthropologist who traveled widely in North Africa and South America,

and most importantly he was also an art collector and Patron of the Arts.

Sargent met Pozzi in 1881, and started work on the painting.

There were plenty of portraitists in Paris at the time,

and Sargent knew he needed an edge to stand out.

The risk-taking and unmasculine poses and attire,

made sure Sargent was noticed early on, and Dr Pozzi liked a risk.

The composition departs significantly from the usual formal academic portraits of medical doctors,

and is certainly different from the way Pozzi presented himself to the public.

The portrait, with its strange clothing

and seductive quality comes across

as more of a Boudoir portrait.

Sargent's mainstream sensuousness has always been recognized,

and scholars have said that the image flirts between heterosexual and homosexual desire.

The artist's private life is not necessarily the key to his work,

but as with all artists it is important to look at the world he

inhabited.

Little is known about Sargent's personal life,

as he destroyed many of his private papers, but in 1981,

a full Century after he created them,

a portfolio of intimate nude males in sensual or erotic poses was discovered.

He had given it to his friend Isabella Stewart Gardner for safekeeping.

He knew they would be seen after his death.

What those daring images tell us,

is that Sargent had a need to push the boundaries of what was considered

acceptable in art,

and that is precisely what makes him so interesting.

In the portrait of Dr Pozzi his swagger is unmistakably sexual.

He is oozing sex appeal, his bedroom eyes look dreamily into the distance,

and his neatly trimmed beard

and pomaded hair suggests a familiarity with his own reflection.

Portrait painting at the time dictated that formal dress was worn,

but Sargent had already broken this unwritten rule with an earlier portrait,

where the sitter is rather saucily dressed in an unbuttoned shirt -

and is posing in a Velázquez Swagger.

In "Dr Pozzi at Home", the outfit and the colour are quite shocking.

He is in a dressing gown of the brightest crimson, suggestive of passion.

His left hand sits limply on his hip,

and he fingers a red cord with a dangling tassle hanging heavily between his

legs - as if he may open the robe to the viewer at any

point.

The other hand languidly caresses his chest.

It is a provocative pose, even for the 21st century.

Beneath the gown, his night-shirt is dazzlingly white, and romantically Byron-esque.

The red robe gives him a "Renaissance magnificence"

and references images of Popes

and Cardinals by the Old Masters.

The pose is utterly self-assured and commanding,

and could have been modelled after El Greco's "Portrait of a Man"

which Sargent knew well.

It is the gynaecologist's hands which are the focal point of the composition.

Sargent's depiction of hands in his paintings are considered some of the most skilful

and expressive portrayal of hands in the history of Western Art.

He tended to bend, twist,

or contort fingers and hands into unusual and sometimes impossible positions.

Using hands to suggest the character and temperament of his subjects.

Using subtle variations in posture, gesture and expression,

to create a sense of psychological depth and complexity.

In his wonderful portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson for example,

Sargent portrays the subject's hands in a way that suggests both creativity AND fragility,

with the fingers delicately posed - as if in the act of creating.

This painting of the French artist Paul Helleu,

records the precise and delicate pose of the artist's hand,

as he applies paint to his canvas with intense concentration.

Dr Pozzi's hands are tapering

and sensitive with long busy fingers

that suggest his surgical prowess

as a gynaecologist.

But also hint at the more "sensual" side of Dr Pozzi.

Sargent, aware that the painting of Dr Pozzi was perhaps too salacious,

decided against showing it in Paris (where he lived),

and instead decided to show it in London.

The painting got mostly hostile reviews.

British critics found it "Objectionably Parisian", "too decadent", too "En Vogue".

One critic even hinted, it was "effeminate".

The portrait ranks amongst Sargent's most experimental Works - rivalled only by his Infamous

Madame X.

Madame X would be Sargent's most ambitious work to date.

It would change the course of both his life

and his subject. and yet it almost didn't happen.

His sitter the 23-year-old Virginie Gautreau,

was a figure of fashionable High Society.

The "It" Girl of her day, and she was famous for being infamous.

Sargent was determined to produce something for the 1884 Salon,

just as unconventional as his Dr Pozzi,

who would even be a factor in choosing her.

This was not going to be one of his usual empathetic renderings of a

woman,

but something much more "stagey".

He would portray her as a "diva" and he would capitalise on her notoriety.

Like Sargent, Gautreau was an American expatriate from a wealthy family.

Her father was killed during the American Civil War

and she and her mother moved to Paris,

where Virginie's strange Beauty and natural Grace,

made sure she married well - to a prosperous but boring Banker.

She wasn't conventionally beautiful (even for the time), but with her Alabaster skin,

red upswept hair, and shapely figure, she was undeniably striking.

She skirted the fringes of Bohemian Paris

and was constantly featured in Gossip magazines like "L'illustration" thanks to her many extramarital

love affairs.

Sargent met her in 1880 when he painted Dr Pozzi,

who was one of her lovers.

In Parisian Society, it was perfectly acceptable for married women to have affairs -

as long as one was discreet about it.

The first thing to understand is that she didn't commission the painting,

it was Sergeant who pursued her.

Initially Madame Gautreau was not interested at all, and it took months of persuasion,

with several of her friends approached by Sargent

and a word in her ear from Dr Pozzi.

Everyone wanted to paint her and everyone wanted to meet her.

The artist and the subject must have recognised in each other a like-minded hunger

for fame,

and she eventually agreed in early 1883,

but insisted Sargent came to her estate in Brittany to paint her.

As it wasn't a commissioned work, and she had done the artist a favour,

he had no choice.

The whole process was difficult.

She sat for a few drawings,

but it took over 30 sessions to find an effective pose.

Settling on one that captured her famous profile.

As always Sargent's palette and brushwork were inspired by Velázquez,

and his "Chiaroscuro" by artists like Titian.

In fact, Sargent had originally emphasised the light/dark contrast even more,

with a much darker background.

Unhappy with it, he painted over with the more neutral colour

that we see today.

If you look carefully though,

you can see traces of the darker background along the frame's edge,

because he repainted while the portrait was still framed.

Another inspiration was Japanese prints,

which were becoming increasingly fashionable in Europe during the late 19th century.

Madame X incorporates elements

that are similar to Japanese Aesthetics such

as the use of asymmetry

and the emphasis on negative space,

her stark black clothes and the minimalistic background.

Sargent's depiction of her skin tone was criticised at the time for its powder

blue pallor,

and some said she looked like she was decomposing.

Gautreau was actually a Louisiana Creole of mixed European heritage,

and was often mistaken for a South-American, then considered "exotic".

According to the artist,

it was her use of "chlorate of potash powder"

and arsenic that gave her skin a lavender tinge.

Her ears have been touched with Rouge to denote blushing.

A fashion in those days,

but one that would lead to more accusations of her being a "painted lady".

One member of the Tabloid press even suggested it was "a post-coital flush".

It's hard to make out

but she is wearing the tiniest of tiaras - barely there - in the

shape of a crescent moon,

the symbol of Diana,

the goddess of the hunt - perhaps referencing her supposedly predatory nature

as a Huntress/Seductress.

Another detail is the table legs

which taper upwards into winged Sirens

or "Femme Fatales" from Greek mythology,

who plunged Sailors to their doom.

And while we are here,

let's look at how Sargent depicts the light hitting the edge of the table,

so realistically - but up close it is just a single slash of his brush.

And her wedding ring (which added to the Scandal),

is really just one tiny dab of paint,

but from a distance reads perfectly

as a wedding ring - our eyes do the rest.

In this photo of the painting taken at the time of the Paris opening,

we see that he originally painted her with the strap of her gown falling

off her shoulder.

It was this detail that caused such an outcry.

The loose strap was seen as a signifier of loose morals,

suggesting either the beginning or the end of a sexual liaison.

Only later when the exhibition closed

and after much pleading from Madame Gautreau's mother did Sargent repaint

that section - but by

then the damage was done.

It is worth looking at what women were wearing at the time in two

portraits painted by Sargent in the same year he painted Madame X.

The Scandal started on the opening night.

Sargent had always been the "darling" of the salon, fêted by everybody.

But not this time.

Crowds gathered around the painting and jeered, they shouted that it was "detestable", "monstrous".

It is genuinely hard to see what the fuss was about.

Twenty years before in 1865,

Manet had shown Olympia at the salon to a scandalised Paris,

so why the shock now?

The difference was, that Manet's Olympia was a prostitute,

like the women in Toulouse-Lautrec's painting, also on display in 1884.

But Madame X was part of French High Society.

At the time sergeant had named the painting "Madame XXX",

but Parisians knew exactly who this woman was.

Despite Paris's reputation as a decadent Bohemian c ity,

Madame Gautreau's sexual confidence and shame-free adultery, struck a nerve.

Even though her infidelities were known (thanks to the scandal sheets),

they were not considered "a fit subject for polite society".

Parisians were forced to confront their own decadence, which they preferred not to acknowledge.

And THIS was where Sergeant went wrong.

The salons were a sacrosanct part of French culture, and he,

a foreigner was flaunting immorality in their faces, with a painting of another foreigner!

An exotic one at that.

Reviewers objected to Madame Gautreau's appearance; The low-cut dress, and her plentiful cleavage.

But most of the scathing reviews were reserved for the shockingly wanton shoulder strap.

If we do look at them as a possible "pair",

the first thing to notice is that the dimensions of the works are similar.

That's not to say that he hadn't used large thin canvases,

before but looking at other paintings from this period, it was a rarity.

Sargent was attracted to theatricality and glamour,

and Dr Pozzi and Madame X are male/ female versions of the same "type".

They are both flamboyant peacock figures, with a streak of vanity,

and a knack for seduction.

There is something in the way they are posed which is unconventional,

they have an indirect gaze, and they both have supreme confidence - verging on arrogance.

Seen together, there is a certain amount of flirtatious energy between the paintings,

a sexual frisson.

Is it possible that Sargent dared to create a pair of companion portraits almost

identical in scale,

and of a similar audaciousness,

which alludes to the sitter's affair in a way

that upper-class Parisians would have understood.

And that once it was out in the open, so to speak,

it would have made the scandalous portraits just

that little bit more scandalous -

and grab more attention for Sargent.

The artist may never have intended for them to be displayed together,

not physically anyway, but I think there is a possibility he saw them

as a "pair",

and even foresaw the ruckus they would cause.

Sargent had created a scandal with these two paintings

that would have a profound effect on his future,

and that of Madame Gautreau.

Dr Pozzi was never socially ostracised.

Unlike his female counterpart, his infidelities were seen as "par for the course".

If anything he became even more accepted,

and would go on to become one of the most eminent doctors

and research professors of his generation.

Later he became a French Senator and then served in two Wars.

First as a medic in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870,

and then in the first World War as a military surgeon.

He was by this time in his late 60s, stouter and greyer,

but still handsome in his Lieutenant-Colonel's uniform.

On the 13th of June 1918,

a former patient came to see Pozzi in his consulting room.

The doctor had operated on him three years before,

and the man believed he had become impotent as a result.

He shot Dr Pozzi three times, and then shot himself in the head.

Pozzi's emergency surgery was unsuccessful and he died shortly afterwards.

After Madam X was shown in Paris, Sargent himself was socially ostracised,

and commissions dried up.

His old friend Henry James persuaded the artist to join him in England

and make a fresh start.

Sargent took Madame X with him,

which he said was the best painting he ever did.

And he kept it on display in his new London Studio

as his scandalous calling card.

It is a myth that Sargent, was an overnight success in London.

The British aristocracy was initially wary of such a scandalous painter,

and it took a while, but the talented are always forgiven,

and Sargent how to create a buzz.

Two years after his arrival in London,

he produced this incredible painting of his friend's daughters -

and the commissions came flooding in.

Eventually Sargent became the pre-eminent portrait painter of British society,

averaging 14 portrait commissions per year,

each costing the equivalent of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars in today's money.

Madam X was not so lucky.

She was banished by Parisian high society

and her family would be obliged to leave Paris.

I think, however, her "social exclusion" has been exaggerated.

Before the salon, she told Sargent how much she loved the portrait

and even though Sargent picked it out,

it was her choice to wear that recklessly low-cut dress,

and it was she who approved the pose - including the Fallen strap.

She must have known how she would be perceived by the public.

Yet we know that within a year of the scandal,

she was back in Paris - and back in the tabloids.

As An American in Paris,

she was never going to be totally accepted in French high society,

and it's quite possible that she just didn't care what they thought.

The Experience didn't stop her vanity,

and after Sargent she commissioned two of her own portraits,

and her choice of outfits was hardly demure.

They both seemed to capitalise on the notoriety of Sargent's painting.

She went on to live a happy if vacuous life with her husband.

A beauty until the end, she died in Cannes in 1915.

Shortly after her death,

Sargent sold the painting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,

thirty years after he created it.

On the proviso it would be renamed "Madame X",

and the museum would never use her real name.

John Singer Sargent died at the age of sixty-nine in his sleep.

For a while, he was seen as anachronistic and facile.

A society painter and a careerist, happy to pander to aristocratic privilege.

Which is ironic, as his contemporaries saw the gestural abstraction in his paintings

as a radical departure.

Sargent occupies that crucial moment in art history just before things began to change

so quickly,

and he was criticised by some for his reluctance to participate in the more

revolutionary movements.

Now we know that he was one of the greatest painters of the late

19th and early 20th century.

Who wasn't merely creating flattering, theatrical images of the idol and the ostentatious.

Sargent, captured the very essence of his times with depth and truthfulness,

even in his most flamboyant paintings.

Even though the artist was on the inside he was also an "outsider",

and this is what gives Sergant an "edge"

and a different perspective on the world.

THIS is what drove him to create some of the most memorable

and Innovative art of his generation.