John Singer Sargent: Advice from the Master

"Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley"
by John Singer Sargent

"About this time Miss J.H. Heyneman arrived as an art student from American with a letter of introduction which she forwarded to Tite Street. In response Sargent invited her to his studio: 'Any day next week, after half past five, you would be sure to fine me, and I will be glad to show you what few things are in my studio.' She called the following week and noted that 'In any company he seemed to tower over every one else in the room, as much by reason of his personality as through the accident of his height... In repose his glance was often half veiled and brooding, but when he became interested his eyes lit up and he fixed them, full and sparkling, upon the speaker who, inspired by that intent gaze, would often surpass himself, or tell far more than he intended.'

Shortly afterwards he called on her and insisted on seeing, not only the sketches which she had been prepared to show him, but all those she had brought to England with her. His criticisms, as he sat on the floor where the sketches were laid out, were at once friendly and drastic. He urged the necessity of self-discipline, of never being satisfied with easy conclusions, of always trying to do the thing just beyond one's capacity. He told her that she was too ignorant to be so clever in her drawing, that any success arrived at by chance was of little value, that the education of a painter was chiefly a matter of training eye, hand and mind to work swiftly and in unison, and that what she acquired herself would always be of more interest than what she acquired through his or any other teaching.

He went on: 'Never leave empty spaces, every stroke of pencil or brush should have significance and not merely fill in... Copy one of the heads by Franz Hals in the National Gallery, then you will get an idea of what I mean by leaving no empty spaces in modelling a head, work at the fine head of the old woman rather than the superficial one of the man, I will come there and give you a criticism and haul you over the coals.'

Sure enough a few days later he appeared at the National Gallery. After looking at what she had done he said: 'Don't concentrate so much on the feature. They are only like spots on an apple. Paint the head. Now you have only nose mouth and eyes.' His criticisms were often trenchant. 'That's not a head,' he would say, 'that's a collection of feature.' 'That's not a shadow, that's a hole, there is light in the darkest shadow.' 

But though often severe, he never discouraged. No one sought his advice, whether in painting or writing or music, without gaining some new stimulus to effort. He could disapprove without wounding, and condemn without disheartening. He had the good manners which have their origin in the heart, the courtesy which springs from sympathy, and if he trod delicately it was because he had a fine instinct for what others felt. When he saw an opportunity to encourage he took it."

To be continued

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