In that its conclusions are so little deliberate painting differs from literature. John Sargent did not sum up his characters, he painted what he saw; but he caught, subconsciously perhaps, each fugitive betrayal of a passing thought, a restless movement, a smile or a glance. This subtle power of definition has been, in all ages, the peculiar gift of great portrait painters.
In recalling the astonishing variety and scope of his work, it may be assumed that he was almost indifferent to the form in which he was called upon to portray the modern spirit. His only prayer must have been that that spirit should not be utterly com monplace. For dullness he had no talent, even his magic touch failed to enliven it. Before the strange, the unexpected, the bizarre, his resource and his freshness were unfailing. No happy invention was permitted to degenerate into a formula. He never repeated himself. For the extremes of youth and of age he had undeniable tenderness; with incredible delicacy he portrayed the flower-like freshness of one, and if he did not disguise in the other the hint of decrepitude it was generally illumined by more than a suggestion of wisdom and dignity.
At the very height of his fame, in 191o, he decided to give up the painting of portraits. He had grown tired of the tyranny of sitters, and had begun to lose interest in his work. This decision, so typical of his artistic integrity, he lived up to. Only in excep tional instances was he afterwards induced to break his rule, and then never for considerations of money. Though he lived on a generous scale, he was never a wealthy man. Always ready to give a helping hand to a student, or to a brother artist, he was at once too busy and too impatient of all forms of implied supe riority ever to want to teach. Deliberately then, perhaps, he set his face against the scattering of his energies over too wide a field. An omnivorous reader and a passionate musician, an excel lent host and a most entertaining guest, his rare leisure was all too adequately filled.
In a holiday spirit he began to play with water-colour (in which medium he had made his earliest efforts at painting) and the result of his first summer of freedom may be seen in the sparkling brilliance, the irresistible gaiety of the 8o sketches bought en bloc by the Brooklyn Fine Arts Museum. His disciplined hand had acquired an almost miraculous lightness and certainty of touch.
But a heavier task had already for years been engaging his energies, and the last 20 years of his life were given more and more to the magnificent series of decorations which illustrate the range of his great gifts. It was said of his "History of Religion," begun in 1890 and not completed till 1916 (the sub ject for the great Hall in the Boston Public Library known as Sargent Hall), that his work here was not only a monument to the picturesque possibilities of his colossal subject, but to the sheer erudition of the painter. This task took him on several journeys to Egypt, Palestine, etc., as well as for a few months almost every year to America, where he had a studio in Boston, in the Columbus Avenue Building; and he had also another studio in London, for these huge decorations, at The Avenue Studios, 75 Fulham Road.
In 1914, at the outset of the War, he was on holiday in Austria, and he witnessed with horror the disintegration of the Europe he had known. He gave without stint ; and when the opportunity offered went to the front to record his impressions at first hand.
In his famous war picture "Gassed" (London War Museum) he testified to his deep admiration for the invincible pluck of the British soldier. In the background, through the waning light of the late afternoon, we see the ground carpeted by writhing figures; while a tragic procession of wounded men, blinded by gas, staggers towards the dressing station.
The quieter life in London suited Sargent's temperament better than the more lavish social exactions of Boston. In London finally he was to know an honour no living painter had hitherto expe rienced. The magnificent series of portraits, bequeathed to the nation by Asher Wertheimer, were hung in the National Gallery. A wing in the Tate Gallery, the gift of Sir Joseph Duveen, now houses these, and such other works by Sargent as are already in national possession—the portraits of Lord Ribblesdale (1902), of Coventry Patmore (1895), of Henry James (1914), Octavia Hill (1899), of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (1899), and many others. Sargent is represented in the principal galleries of the world, but the Metropolitan in New York, and the Boston Fine Arts Museum, are particularly rich in fine examples. The decora tions for the Boston Library, for the Boston Fine Arts Museum, for the Harvard Memorial Chapel, absorbed him till, fortunate to the end, death overtook him in his sleep, in his loth year, with no evident diminution of his forces, no weakening of his physical or mental energy.
In looking back over his immense achievement, his extraordi nary vitality strikes one first. His slightest sketch pulsates with life. The beautiful suavity of his style, acquired through the iron discipline of years, never sacrificed its spontaneity. He shirked no labour, and knew no greater joy in life than this con centration on work provided him. He would paint a head twenty times over in order to establish an appearance of fluency and ease. His insight into character went far beyond ordinary perception either of artists or of laymen ; at its best it became a miracle of intuition as of skill in its rendition.
What he lacked entirely may be called, for lack of a better term, the feminine touch. Beauty or charm that were not in direct relation with his subject he could not entertain. This severity was his strength in contradistinction to the weakness of much of the art of the period which perpetuated the worship of purely irrelevant sweetness.
Taken as a whole his portraits, drawn from every class of society, in their great number and variety, in the boldness, the wit, the keen incisiveness and the distinction of their presenta tion, must come to be considered an epitome of the age he lived in—of its stateliness and splendour, of its elegance and grace, of its pretentiousness and its vulgarity. The human panorama, in its every manifestation, he found endlessly diverting and de lineating it as he did with uncompromising directness, his work, in its unflinching yet happy realism, bears the very stamp of truth.
Mr. Sargent had never married. He had been a devoted son and brother, and was survived by his two sisters, Miss Emily Sargent and Mrs. Francis Ormond. His body was interred at Brookwood Cemetery. Memorial services were held at West minster Abbey, at the request of the Royal Academy, and a replica in bronze of the Crucifixion in the Boston Library, with a memorial tablet, has been placed in the Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral. (J. HN.)