Immediately after his return to Paris he painted the beautiful canvases "El Jaleo" (Salon 1882), now at Fenway Court, Bos ton, and "The Children of E. D. Boit" (Salon 1883), now in the Boston Fine Arts Museum. Of "The Lady of the Rose" (Miss Burkhardt), which was shown in 1881 and gained a second class medal, Henry James wrote that it was the work of "a talent which on the very threshold of its career has nothing more to learn." This was a phrase, for to the end of his days Sargent remained the student, making even briefer the span between brain and hand, between conception and achievement; yet these early canvases are remarkably mature, with a beauty of surface texture he rarely excelled, and with the atmospheric "quality" he had learned from Velasquez. He had the special readiness of genius to absorb great traditions, to take valuable hints from every source, and incorporate them into his own work with the freshness and vigour of a deeply original mind.
From the outset commissions came to him unsought. He had to knock at no doors; but it was not till the Salon of 1884, when he showed the portrait of Madame Gautreau (Metropolitan Mu seum of New York), that the painter awoke to find himself famous—or infamous. Madame Gautreau was the friend of Gambetta, acclaimed by the Republican party, and Sargent was accused of having purposely done a caricature. The jour nalists outdid each other in senseless abuse.
This experience, with its astounding unreason, probably laid the foundation for his almost incredible independence of critical comment. Irritated by adulation, detesting every form of pub licity, he could never be induced, unless it was forced upon him, to read any criticism of his own work, appreciative or the reverse.
So furious and so prolonged was the outcry in the French Press that finally, in a fit of disgust, Sargent left Paris and moved to London. His first studio was in Kensington, but in 1885 he had already settled at 33 Tite Street, Chelsea. In 1901 he bought the adjacent house (No. 31), and a door was cut through be tween the two studios. Here he lived and worked till his death on April 15, 1925.
Into these 4o years of his London domicile was crowded the experience of a dozen ordinary lifetimes. His first exhibited study of childhood: "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose," was bought in 1887, by the Chantrey bequest, for the Tate Gallery. A few years later the Luxembourg acquired the picture of the Spanish dancer "Car mencita," painted 189o, shown at the Royal Academy 1891. In spite of adverse criticism, it was not long before he was in great demand as a portrait painter, and the unflagging zeal of his indus try kept pace with every triumph of public recognition. He num
bered among his sitters princes and princesses, musicians, actors, teachers, writers, statesmen and diplomats. Many of his dis tinguished models he painted in their habit as they lived. The great groups of "The Duke of Marlborough and his Family" (1905), the "Ladies Acheson," (1902), the "Daughters of the Hon. Percy Wyndham" (1900), the "Misses Hunter" (1902), etc., and a noble series of single portraits, notably those of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught (1908), the Duke (i9oi) and Duchess of Portland (1902), Lord Russell of Killowen (19oo) ; of Francis Penrose, Esq. (1898), and of innumerable beautiful women : The Duchess of Sutherland (1904), the Countess of War wick (19o4), Lady Agnew (1893), Lady (Ian) Hamilton (1896), Mrs. Hammersley (1893), increased his every-growing prestige.
In 1894 he was elected an associate, in 1897 to full member ship of the Royal Academy, and at the exhibitions at Burlington House his portraits were the centre of interest and of controversy. It became a high distinction to be painted by him, and hundreds clamoured for the honour in vain. Universities offered him degrees, he had as many medals as a war veteran. Quite unmoved by all this acclamation, he retained the serene simplicity of manner that made him so exceptional and so distinguished a figure.
In the sense of being generally understood John Sargent was never a popular painter. Painting is the most outspoken of the arts, but its language is not easy to read. Its apparent simplicity and the directness of its appeal to the eyes are misleading, and in the case of pictures so incisive and brilliant, so uncompromising in their truth, so unerring and authoritative in their presentation of character, it was no wonder that they awakened as much resent ment as admiration. There are mysteries of light, as well as of darkness, and the secrets of this accomplishment were no less inscrutable, became actually more tantalising, because the method of expression was so frank, and looked so amazingly easy to imi tate. And he was imitated, inevitably, but in no single instance with any distinction. Referred to as a psychologist or a satirist, he was frequently accused of deliberately accentuating the less pleasing qualities in his sitters—a foolish legend he dismissed with a shrug of his shoulders. "I chronicle," he once said, "I do not judge." Though his outlook on life was essentially indulgent, his sense of humour was irrepressible, and the unerring rectitude of his realism struck at a deep-rooted human weakness—a pref erence to be seen not as we are but as we should like to be.