A CENTURY AGO, WHEN portraiture was the leading platform proclaiming status and position, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was in high-demand as the top portrait artist of his era. He was lauded by his long-time friend, writer Henry James, for his ability to translate visual perception into art “as if painting were pure tact of vision, a simple manner of feeling.”  (Henry James, “Picture & Text,” Harper’s Magazine, 1887.)

Born in Florence to expatriate American parents, John Singer Sargent inherited their passion for travel. One critic noted that Sargent was “born into a family right out of a Henry James novel about Bostonian expatriates wandering Europe in search of culture.”  (Susan Abbott, “The Gesture of Light in Sargent’s Watercolors.”)  James himself enthused that Sargent’s “Baedeker education” made him multilingual and “civilized to his fingertips.” Throughout his childhood, Sargent’s family traveled across Europe and immersed him in art-filled museums and churches–he was entranced. He trained in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and then at the atelier of portraitist Carolus-Duran. In his emerging young career, he befriended Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, embracing their passion for light and movement without taking on the mantle of “Impressionism.”

This Fall, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has organized an exhibition focusing on an overlooked but favorite destination of Sargent’s travels–Spain. Spain had emerged as a major artistic attraction, with the Prado Museum luring such Americans as Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, and Robert Henri. As the National Gallery’s exhibition “Sargent In Spain” now affirms, Spain enticed Sargent as well.  Between 1879 and 1912, he made seven extended journeys to Spain, soaking in the art, culture, and essential feel of the country.  His first expedition came when he was 23 at the behest of his teacher, Carolus-Duran, who encouraged him to study Velazquez’s work at the Prado.

“Sargent in Spain” features 120 oils, watercolors, drawings and photographs selected from public and private collections by NGA curator Sarah Cash, who organized the exhibition with leading Sargent authorities Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray. The first section of the exhibition displays examples of Sargent’s work on his first extended trip to Spain, when he enrolled as a copyist at the Prado Museum. His copies reveal how Sargent carefully studied Velazquez’s technique and absorbed aspects of it into his own personal style. Notably, the exhibit explains how his study of Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” led him to create “Venetian Interior” (c. 1880-82) below, which is featured in “Sargent in Spain.”

Sargent’s enchantment with Spain extended from Madrid to Toledo, Seville, and Granada. He relished the nation’s amazing sunlight—a feature which permeated and dappled his works constantly from his first “awakening”. Sunlight encapsulated  Sargent’s radiant spirit, and he never hesitated to inject it in both his oils and watercolors; examples in the exhibition include the oil painting “A Marble Fountain at Aranjuez” (1912?) and the watercolor “Tomb of Toledo” (1903?). 

The Spanish people also had a deep impact on Sargent. It’s true that he painted such upper crust sitters as the cosmopolitan Charlotte Louise Burckhart, whose portrait “Lady with the Rose” is in the exhibition. But he was also passionate to paint Spain’s  performing arts, and the second section of “Sargent in Spain” focuses on his depictions of Spanish music and dance. Between 1879 and 1881, and again around 1890, he painted an energized series of images of Spanish dancers and musicians. 

“On a 1908 visit, he proclaimed ‘No more paughtraits’ to a friend. Instead, he rejected  society paintings and focused on depicting the daily life he saw–the Spanish landscape, its people, ports, and ships–to reveal his own sense of Spain’s spirit of place.”

His monumental painting “El Jaleo” captures a woman about to perform a swirling Andalusian flamenco dance in front of guitarists. Other figures clap and snap their fingers, and the whole portrait radiates Sargent’s passion for flamenco.  While this painting was too enormous to move from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the exhibition displays the preparatory sketches Sargent undertook and conveys how intensively he labored to make his depiction of Spanish dance move with electrifying energy.  The exhibition was able to include oil sketches Sargent made in 1890 of renowned dancer La Carmencita; next to these sketches, it’s fascinating to see the dancer herself performing in Thomas Edison’s 1894 film (see below, frame stills from 1894 film).   What is  clear is that Sargent–an accomplished pianist himself–was so immersed in music that he captured dance movement differently than his contemporaries. Degas’s dancers seem glued to the floor compared to Sargent’s fiery flamenco performers.

Below: John Singer Sargent, El Jaleo (1882), 7? 10? x 11? 5?, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (not on view)

Sargent’s Spanish trips after 1900 were among his most productive; in his 1903, 1908, and 1912 visits he produced over 100 new works. He remained enchanted with Spain’s music, dance, and people, but at a certain point he grew restless with being tagged the greatest portrait painter of his time. On a 1908 visit, he proclaimed “No more paughtraits” to a friend. Instead, he rejected  society paintings and focused on depicting the daily life he saw–the Spanish landscape, its people, ports, and ships–to reveal his own sense of Spain’s spirit of place.  The next three sections of the exhibition convey these depictions of people-and-place. He was particularly taken with the vibrant colors of Majorca, and wrote, “I am very content in this ravishing country.”  

Left:  John Singer Sargent, A Garden Vase, c. 1903, watercolor over graphite on paper, image, 17 1/4 x 11 5/8″. Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Museum Purchase, 1960.003 Photo Credit: Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA

The landscapes and village scenes he painted—often quickly done with confident, broad brushstrokes–convey the happiness he felt with Spain’s sun-filled spaces. These daily life scenes were as immersed in theatricality as his grand manner portraits had been.  On his last trip to Spain in 1912, his paintings and sketches were dominated by Roma dwellings, olive groves, fisherman scenes, and farm courtyards—all depicted with brushstrokes that seemed to “move” and radiate light. Portraits never allowed him this kind of freedom, and unshackling himself from their strictures made him relish art with new enthusiasm.

The final section of “Sargent in Spain” is devoted to the murals he painted for the Boston Public Library. Sargent considered Boston his American home, and in 1891 the public library commissioned him to paint a series of murals. Sargent decided his theme would be “The History of Religion,” and traveled extensively in Egypt, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Athens working on the murals between 1895 and 1919. The exhibition argues that this mural cycle–ultimately entitled “The Triumph of Religion”–illustrates Sargent’s fascination with the spiritual power offered by Spanish art; the objects on view include his studies of cathedrals, religious paintings, and sketches made while creating the murals. The final gallery features photographic murals, a reading area, and an interactive kiosk where visitors can view one of Sargent’s scrapbooks. 

Below: [detail] The Triumph of Religion, ‘Frieze of the Prophets’ (1895), Boston Public Library

Though Sargent never visited Spain after 1912, he always retained his enchantment with that country’s people, art, landscapes, and architecture. His embrace of Spain’s unique “light” was a major factor in his art—a quality his traveling companion Henry James noted  when he wrote that “the quality in light” pervaded Sargent’s work with “an almost reverence.”  James, a close and observant friend of Sargent’s over the years, was perhaps a “first among equals” amidst a vast coterie that included such prominent figures as actors Edwin Booth, Eleonora Duse and Ellen Terry; writers  Robert Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats and George Meredith; and society doyenne/dazzling collector Isabella Stewart Gardner.  Sargent’s friendship with Henry James is treated in more depth in Paul Fisher’s new biography, THE GRAND AFFAIR: JOHN SINGER SARGENT IN HIS WORLD.

“Sargent in Spain” will be at the National Gallery of Art through Jan. 2, 2023, and then travel to San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum.  The accompanying catalogue is lavish and filled with art that conveys Sargent’s love for Spain’s people, life, and culture.

By Amy Henderson, Senior Contributing Editor

SARGENT IN SPAIN  will be at the National Gallery through Jan. 2, 2023.  A catalogue of the same title is available at NGA.GOV.