John Singer Sargent: Back to London

"Interior of the Hagia Sophia"
by John Singer Sargent

"After Egypt and Greece, John Singer Sargent and his family went to Constantinople. Here, by bribing an official, he obtained leave to do a sketch of the interior of Santa Sophia, one of the most purely atmospheric canvases which he painted. There are probably a few better examples that exist of his power for rendering the structure and spacing of a building with the minimum of definition.

In August his sister Violet was married in Paris to Monsieur Ormond. It was not till the autumn of 1891 that Sargent was back in England after an absence, save for a brief visit in June, of two years. It was then that Mrs. Sargent and Miss Emily leased a house close to Sargent's own in Tite Sreet. In the years to follow a large part of his home life was spent with his sister Emily.

Sargent was beginning to be recognized as the first of living portrait painters. In London he had formed many friendships, and was greatly sought after. Being 'licked into London shape' had proved a less trying process than he had anticipated. He, Whistler and Henry James were recognized in the nineties as stars of the first magnitude, and though Sargent and James equally and consistently shunned publicity like the plague, 'renown' has a tendency to make things easy, to simplify the stranger's problems, and amplify his area of selection and choice. At the same time any one more completely unconscious of his prestige than Sargent can hardly be imagined. It coursed and eddied about his feet, but he never suffered it to throw him off his balance or to disturb the full and even measure of his working days."

To be continued

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