John Singer Sargent: In Memoriam

Detail of "Vernon Lee [Violet Paget]" by J.S. Sargent

After John Singer Sargent's death, his old friend Vernon Lee wrote her memories of him and his family. Here are two excerpts:

"Take, for instance, the matter of John Sargent's heredity, and the respective parts played by his parents. Already his sisters have demurred to my view, and tell me that his special gifts must have come from his father's side, since among his paternal ancestors there was, at least, one painter of Colonial times. But to me, who see in recollection Mrs. Sargent painting, painting, painting away, always an open paint box in front of her, through all the forty years I knew her, her whole jocund personality splashed, as it were, with the indigo of seas and the carmine of sunsets, to me the painting gift of John Sargent is all from his mother; while what he had from his father was the deep-seated character, the austere, self-denying strength which smelted and tempered that talent into genius."

"When I was a child, and John and Emily and I (eighteen months separating the youngest of us from the eldest) were children together, for two winters at Nice and one (so memorable) in Rome. I adored Mrs. Sargent and was rather afraid of Dr. Sargent. Not that he ever scolded me, or his own children in my presence. With perfect courtesy he passed over my vain little person, whereas Mrs. Sargent, bubbling with sympathies and the need for sympathy, treated everyone as an equal in the expansiveness of her unquenchable youthfulness and joie de vivre. When I come to think of it, Dr. Sargent could not have been so very tall, but his head seemed higher up than other people's, longer and stiffer. One knew whenever he spoke, not without an austere twang; and I, at all events had a childish impression that his words implied disapproval." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "J.S.S.: In Memoriam" by Vernon Lee.)