John Singer Sargent: Holland in 1880

"Marie Buloz Pailleron
(Madame Edouard Pailleron)
by J.S. Sargent

"John Singer Sargent set out with Paul Helleu and Ralph Curtis for a tour in Holland, and to return before the opening of the Salon. It was his first opportunity of studying Frans Hals in his native country and in the fullness of his power. The impression was never forgotten. Indeed, Hals henceforward has to be reckoned as one of the formative constituents in his art.

Many years later, to Miss Heyneman who was seeking advice from him, he said: 'Begin with Franz Hals, copy and study Franz Hals, after that go to Madrid and copy Velasquez, leave Velasquez till you have got all you can out of Franz Hals.' Though preferences necessarily change in kind and degree and too much importance should not be attached to an artist's 'obiter dicta' [something said in passing], it is of more than passing interest to note that once when discussing genius in painting he said that the four painters who in his opinion possessed it in a superlative degree were Rembrandt, Titian, Tintoretto and Raphael, and upon Velasquez being suggested, added that no painter exceeded Velasquez in technical skill, but that he was less gifted in his power to interpret spiritual qualities.

While in Holland the party visited Scheveningen, and here Sargent did a sketch in oils of his friend Ralph Curtis, seated among the sand dunes. It is painted in a low key, soft in tone and delicate in colour, done obviously 'au premier coup,' and shows unmistakably that he was in these years inclining to the modern French school of painting. In the same year, 1880, he exhibited at the Salon a portrait of 'Mme. E. Pailleron,' the wife of the French author M. Edouard Pailleron, and 'Fumee d'Ambre Gris,' a study for which was shown at the Exhibition at the Royal Academy in January, 1826."

To be continued

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