Blog

While I had planned to write more this month about value situations to watch out for, I've decided to circle back to that topic later and instead let you know about this article recently posted on the Metropolitan Museum website. How Madame X came to the Met tells the story of how, after creating a huge scandal at the 1884 Paris Salon, John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of Madame Gautreau ended up in a museum here in America. The story itself is fascinating enough but at the bottom of the page you will find a link to a terrific video of the Sargent in Paris exhibit I was able to see this past June. Thanks to the internet you can visit the same show minus the crowds, exhaustion and considerable expense of getting there yourself. Not that I would pass on experiencing the exhibit in person but this virtual tour is really well done and the camera zooms in on areas of the paintings that would be impossible to get close to without a stepladder. Enjoy!

                                                                                             John Singer Sargent in atelier  

                                                                  (Adolphe Giraudon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

From the archives: How Madame X came to the Met

Direct link to exhibition tour of Sargent in Paris --

https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/exhibition-tour-sargent-and-paris

" You must draw with your brush as readily, as unconsciously almost as you draw with your pencil." --- John Singer Sargent 

     As mentioned in the previous blog (Museum Hopping -- July 2025), I recently had the good fortune to attend an exhibit of John Singer Sargent's work. Since I'm always curious what might have caught another artist's eye, I thought I'd write about exactly that -- a few of the things that caught my eye and why I found them to be valuable.

     Being a true homebody, I'm not an easy traveler. Once I get someplace I usually love it but the getting there part doesn't do much for me. Maybe that's why when I do leave home, I want to make the most of it and focus on gathering information I can't get any other way. Through books and websites I can find images of complete paintings to study for composition, etc. that are usually better than any photographs I can take, but especially for works in oil, those images don't always give many clues about the way the paint was applied and the texture of the painting surface. For this reason, when taking photos on my art travels, I tend to concentrate more on details of certain areas and sometimes I purposely try to include some glare that helps to show what the paint surface looks like. Below are closeups of various areas in which I've tried to capture the paint application. At the end of the post I've listed (by number) the name of each painting for anyone interested in searching for the complete images.

.  .  

#1                                                         #2                                                         #3

Some of the brushes, the blades of grass and the highlight on the front edge of the table were created using a 

dry brush technique. This involves carefully dragging the brush in such a way that the paint skips across the

surface. The way Sargent used this technique allowed him to add softer and less abrupt strokes to the

painting than if the same value and color of paint had been applied in an unbroken manner. 

.  

#4                                                        #5

More dry brush strokes are noticeable in the lit candles on the birthday cake. In this instance, the vagueness created by the 

broken paint application helps give an illusion of light, yet avoids drawing the viewer's attention away from the figure.

In #5, the reflected light in the pond looks like maybe a combination of scumbling and dry brush, plus a few thicker areas

where the paint might have been applied or flattened out using a painting knife. 

#6

  I've included this image because every time I see this painting I'm blown away by the

skillful way Sargent was able to paint this hand and dress on top of some thick and very

obvious strokes of dry paint.Clearly whatever was underneath was quite a bit different

than the strokes he put on top, yet he was able to look past whatever image was on the

canvas and brilliantly restate a new 'effortless' impression of the subject. To tackle

an area that fearlessly, when he already had so much time and effort invested in the painting,

shows a level of trust in one's vision that very few artists ever achieve.

#7

Although it may not be easy to see in this relatively small image, this area captured my curiosity

for an entirely different reason. It's a detail of a large group portrait and I was initially drawn

in closer to study the brushstrokes. Once I got up on it though, I couldn't help but notice

about a dozen hairs imbedded in the paint surface within the space of a couple of square feet.

Maybe a dog was in the room or one of his brushes started to implode?

I'd love to know the story on that one!

These were a million thoughts going through my head as I wallowed in the energy of such an incredible body of work, but this should give you a glimpse of some of the lessons I was trying to absorb, as well as the surprises I ran across. If I could be there again, no doubt I would notice entirely different things that would spark my interest. Museum hopping is just the best and as much as I love staying home, a part of me can't wait to go again.

Image #1 & 2 --- "Paul Helleu Sketching with His Wife"

Image #3 -- "Madame X"

Image #4 --- "The Birthday Party"

Image #5 --- "In The Luxembourg Gardens"

Image #6 --- "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit"

Image #7 --- " The Wyndham Sisters"

Earlier this month I was fortunate to be doing one of my very favorite things in the whole world --- museum hopping. More specifically, I made the trip to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the 'Sargent and Paris' exhibit which will be open at this location through August 3, 2025. After that it will travel to Paris where it will be on display from September 3 through January 11th of 2026. This will be the first solo exhibit of the artist's work in France, where Sargent's career as a portrait painter began to take off 140 years ago. 

The trip truly exceeded my expectations (which were pretty high to begin with), but as is often the case, there were a few tweaks I would have made if I had some of the information I'll share with you in this blog. While some of these tips will be specific to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a lot of it will apply to any special exhibits and can help you make the most of your time while museum hopping.

To begin with, The Met is absolutely huge and if you head there without a plan you will likely regret it. Often with special shows there are separate tickets for the exhibit but for this location, only an entry fee for general admission is required. This is the largest museum in the US and according to Wikipedia, the 4th largest museum in the world. It was love at first sight for me as a 19-year-old who had just arrived in New York City to study art. After more visits than I can count, there are still many areas I have never explored in this magnificent building and I would love to take a week or more to do just that. There are 2 million objects of art (including an Egyptian Temple) housed at the Met, so making a list of priorities before you get there is a really excellent idea! 

With almost 100 Sargent paintings in the show itself, that was of course my first stop. At any art exhibit where I know a lot of people will be streaming through, my plan for many years has always been the same; get in the door as early as possible and have tickets or entry fees paid for in advance so that it's not necessary to wait in another line. Grabbing a map when you go through the lobby will come in handy though. Then I immediately make a beeline to the very last room in the exhibit so that I can spend a few quiet moments with at least some of the paintings and study them up close before the crowd catches up to me.   

                                      This is how the gallery looked when I first arrived but within about 30 minutes the 

                                      area was already beginning to fill up. Although I had previously studied both of these

                                      paintings individually --- I've always dreamed of comparing the original Madame X,

                                      and the unfinished copy next to each other.

 Eventually I worked my way back upstream to view the first part of the exhibit. After several hours my brain was way past overload, so I wandered off to find my sister and hopefully something to eat. Easier said than done! The museum has 5 or 6 eating spots and much to my surprise the cell service was not good at all (almost non-existent in in certain places) so we ended up eating in different areas of the museum and really didn't connect again until it was almost closing time. (Later I discovered there is free Wifi available, which presumably works better, but we both might have needed to be linked to it.)

After lunch I headed to the American Wing which I was somewhat familiar with from years past. Although it only covers a fraction of the floor space in the building, this wing itself is enormous and spans several floors. Stumbling across an area called "Visual Storage" I was able to follow a diagram and locate several more Sargents plus a lot of other terrific paintings.

                                          Just to give you an idea.... this is the aisle of silver objects in 'Visual Storage'  -- the

                                          ones not on display in the regular museum galleries.

The Visual Storage area is great and I pretty much had the whole place to myself although it should be said that not everything is at eye level and all of it is behind plexiglass. After that it was on to the other rooms where I found more Sargents  -- a total of 11 that were not a part of the exhibit so I assume all were painted after the years in Paris. As always, I was tracking other favorite artists as well so I eventually made my way to the European Painting galleries. This section of the museum covers an even larger area and several more centuries so this is where a little planning ahead will go a long way. The best advice I got from one of the guards was to go to the Met website and search for a particular artist. From there you can see how many pieces of that artist's work they have, whether or not a piece is on exhibit, and if so, what room it's in. Even assuming your phone battery is still charged after taking a bazillion photos and there is a decent connection --- doing this on a small screen would be pretty time consuming and it's far better to save your time and energy for scurrying around looking at art. The guard explained to me that many of the pieces on display are from private collections and whoever made the loan or donation still wants whatever items are from their collection to be shown together as a group. For this reason, you can't assume all of a particular artist's work will all be in one place. As it was I was able to cram about as much into the day (and my brain) as I could but the next time I venture back to New York, I will definitely have a list and a plan for making the most of every minute.

P.S.  -- A final word to those who would love to see this exhibit but the timing or whatever just isn't right --- these Sargent shows are pretty popular and my hope is another one will be coming along again in the next year or two. 

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/sargent-and-paris

https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/whats-on/exhibitions/sargent-paris-years-1874-1884

“Many things that come into the world are not looked into. The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say, don't run with crowds.” --- Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

"My heart is set on not letting myself be forgotten in Paris."--- John Singer Sargent in a letter to Claude Monet