One of my favourite artists is John Singer Sargent, the great Edwardian-era portrait painter. Born in Florence to American parents, he lived an itinerant early life in Europe, his parents moving regularly between sea and mountain resorts in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland (alright for some). Sargent’s early signs of artistic talent led the family to Paris where he gained admission to the École des Beaux-Arts and studied with the noted French portraitist, Carolus-Duran.
In 1879, at the age of 23, Sargent painted a portrait of Carolus-Duran and exhibited it at the Paris Salon. It met with such public approval that his future direction was sealed. He quickly accumulated commissions for portraits and his fame spread. He painted commissioned portraits right up until his death in 1925, but in between commissions he would paint friends and colleagues for fun. It was one such non-commissioned painting, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, that grabbed my attention at the Tate Britain and turned me into an instant fan. However, the subject of today’s blog is the painting that became Sargent’s headline-grabber, Portrait of Madame X.
Just as we saw when I blogged about Edouard Manet, Sargent’s successful career was not without scandal. In 1884 he submitted Portrait of Madame X to the Paris Salon. “Madame X” was “professional beauty” and socialite, Virginie Gautreau, the American wife of a French banker. Sargent actually pursued her to paint her, rather than the other way round. It’s a deeply alluring piece, with the sitter standing in profile, and the deep black of her dress emphasising the “aristocratic pallor” of her skin. With cinched waist, the elegant bone structure, and with one shoulder strap seemingly about to fall off the shoulder, the image could only suggest one thing — the erotic — and it was this, inevitably (for the time), that precipitated the scandal at the Salon. It was only a temporary setback (and Sargent responded by repainting the shoulder strap in a “safer” position), and I don’t suppose a little bit of scandal is too harmful to the career of a gifted artist, after all.
In June of 1999, Nicole Kidman was the cover girl of Vogue, and in her cover story, she posed for photographs in a number of John Singer Sargent re-imaginings (including Madame X) by the photographer, Steven Meisel. The photogenic Kidman suits these pictures perfectly so I thought it well worth showcasing them here, alongside their originals…starting with the beguiling Madame X.
