John Singer Sargent: Migration to Europe

"Violet Paget (Vernon Lee)"
by J.S. Sargent

"Europe, in the words of Henry James, had by this time been 'made easy for' Americans. Just as in the seventeenth century the drift of movement had been from East to West, so now, two hundred years later, the tide had turned from America to Europe. The new world, animated by the impulse to track culture to its sources and discover for itself the origins of artistic inspiration, had begun that steady pilgrimage which has continued to the present day. But by the middle of the nineteenth century the precursors had accomplished their work. The traditions, the institutions and customs of Europe had been reported upon by numberless explorers. 

Migration to Europe was an established practice. Rome and Florence already bore abundant witness to the process of American infiltration. It was, therefore, as an already recognized type of pilgrim that the Sargent family arrived in the old world, though it was long before they were to find a last and settled home in Europe. Florence, Rome, Nice, Switzerland, the watering-places of Germany, Spain, Paris, Pau, London and again Italy, were in turn visited by the family in their wanderings. It is possible to find in John Singer Sargent's art qualities certainly congruous with such an exceptionally restless childhood. 

In 1862 the family was at Nice at the Maison Virello, Rue Grimaldi. In a neighbouring house with an adjoining garden was living Rafael del Castillo, of Spanish descent, whose family had settled in Cuba and subsequently become naturalized Americans. Rafael's son Benjamin was of an age with John Sargent and the two became close friends. He also made friends in these early days with the sons of Admiral Case, of the American Navy, and with Mr. and Mrs. Paget, and their daughter Violet (Vernon Lee). With these and others John and his sister Emily (born at Rome in 1857) were constant associates."

To be continued

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