John Singer Sargent: Paint Studies

"Alberto Falchetti" (detail) by John Singer Sargent

"Miss Heyneman continues: 

'Paint a hundred studies,' John Singer Sargent would say, 'keep any number of clean canvases ready, of all shapes and sizes so that you are never held back by the sudden need of one. You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.' 

He thought it was excellent practice to paint flowers, for the precision necessary in the study of their forms and the pure brilliancy of their colour. It refreshed the tone of one's indoor portraits, he insisted, to paint landscape or figures out of doors, as well as to change one's medium now and then. He disliked pastel, it seemed to him too artificial, or else it was made to look like oil or watercolor, and in that case why not use oil or watercolor...

Upon one occasion, after painting for me, he saw one hard edge, and drew a brush across it, very lightly, saying at the same time 'This is a disgraceful thing to do, and means slovenly painting. Don't ever let me see you do it...' 

I have also seen the assertion that he painted a head always in one sitting. He painted a head always in one process, but that could be carried over several sittings. He never attempted to repaint one eye or to raise or lower it, for he held that the construction of a head prepared the place for the eye, and if it was wrongly placed, the under-construction was wrong, and he ruthlessly scraped and repainted the head from the beginning. That is one reason why his brushwork looks so fluent and easy, he took more trouble to keep the unworried look of a fresh sketch than many a painter puts upon his whole canvas."

To be continued

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