John Singer Sargent: Paris

"In the Luxembourg Gardens" by J.S. Sargent

"It cannot have been without misgiving that FitzWilliam Sargent decided that Paris instead of England was the place for John's art education; a decision which was proof of the liberality of his judgment and his belief in his son. Never was foresight better rewarded. In the interval the Sargents pursued their usual wanderings, and in February, 1874, the year which was to see Sargent established in Paris, they took apartments on the Grand Canal, Venice. Towards the end of this time John wrote his cousin, Mrs. Austin:

'I have been waiting all this time to send this letter with one from Mama... We are packing up in order to leave in the first week in May but the date of our departure is rendered rather uncertain by the provoking fact of my having sprained my ankle very severely two weeks ago on the stairs of the Academy... The Academy in Paris is probably better than the one here and we hear that the French artists undoubtedly the best now-a-days, are willing to take pupils in their studios. I do not think, however, that I am sufficiently advanced to enter a studio now, and I will probably have to study another year at the Academy. We go to Paris now for a short time to make enquiries about this, which will decide whether we go to Paris or not for next winter.  This unhappy Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence is the most unsatisfactory institution imaginable. However, this has been of no more consequence to me since my sprained ankle keeps me at home where I have a very handsome Neapolitan model to draw and paint, who plays on the Zampogna and tamburino and dances tarantellas for us when he is tired of sitting.'

In August the Sargents moved to Paris where John at once started work at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He was very soon faced with an examination, and that the prospect filled him with all the normal perturbations and misgivings:

'The exam is the Concours de Place for the life school of M. Yvon and it seems unreasonably long and difficult and terrible. It began on the 26th of September and two weeks are still to come. The epreuves [tests] de Perspective et d'Anatomie are over. I wish I might say as much for the Dessin d'Ornement which is in store for us tomorrow morning. But the supreme moment is one of twelve hours wherein we must make a finished drawing of the human form divine.'

In October he entered the studio of Carolus Duran, then the foremost portrait painter in Paris."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John Sargent" by Evan Charteris.)