John Singer Sargent: "The Wyndham Sisters"

"The Wyndham Sisters" by J.S. Sargent

"John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits are not the product of any particular period, they lie scattered through his work. In 1900 he painted 'The Wyndham Sisters,' a tour de force in characterization, drawing and the handling of white. The portrait was not painted in Sargent's studio, but in the drawing-room of the Wyndham's London house, 44 Belgrave Square.

The three sisters, Mary, Madeline and Pamela, dressed in white, upon a white sofa in the lower half of the picture presented formidable difficulties: a risk of suggesting a section of geological strata. The artist has posed the elder sister seated on the back of the sofa, in profile, her head slightly turned to the spectators; her delicate intellectual beauty dominates the scene and carries the white into the upper section of the canvas. Further relief to the mass has been obtained by the magnolias, which effect the transition into the shadow of the room beyond. 

The beauty of the picture lies not only in the colour and drawing, but in the impression of serenity and calm. Sargent has here isolated these sisters from the world and encompassed them with their own associations. They are back once again in the surrounding that made their common bond; their mother's picture by Watts is seen on the wall beyond, the noise of life is hushed for the moment. There is a charming sentiment in the composition without a trace of sentimentality.

Letters from the family and close friends give insights into Sargent's artistic thinking. Pamela, the youngest, insightfully wrote:

'My sittings are over now - and he has not repainted the face. He worked on little corners of it and has much improved it I think. He has done the modelling of my nose, and taken a little of the colour out of my cheeks, this improves it - and has strengthened the lines of my hair. That is, where it was all fluffy and rather trivial looking before in the picture he has put in the sweep of hair turned back, This has strengthened it, and made it more like my head really. Then he has found out that the the straight line of my blue 'plastron' was disturbing to the scheme. And much as I regret my pretty blue front I quite see it was rather preclusive of other things in the picture as a whole. For instance both sisters seem to gain by its removal - one's eye is not checked & held by it. It was too distinct a feature in itself to compose well with other parts. He has not eliminated it wholly - but he has disguised it as if I had drawn the lace veil of my dress across it. My face also seems to gain significance by its removal...About Mary says he wishes to get a more 'dreamy' expression in her eyes. He says he can do this by touching the lids. As Mary's eyelids are a most characteristic feature of her face, I think he is right, but of course he will not do it till she sits to him.' 

'When the portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1900, it was hailed as a masterpiece  with 'The Art Journal' critic writing that he would 'hazard the opinion that as a vital and brilliant work in this kind it will be accounted in the future as one of the noteworthy products of the last quarter of a century.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John Sargent" by Evan Charteris, and "John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the 1890s" by Richard Ormund and Elaine Kilmurray.)