Talk:John Singer Sargent

Wider painting range
I'm just curious if anyone else is interested in a wider range of paintings on his wikipedia, there are only oil paintings, and 3 of them are portraits. Showing such small part of his talents isn't good! Maybe add a Scene painting in oil and another in watercolour?

I found and scanned this nifty profile engraving of Sargent from a 1887 issue of Harper's Magazine. The article seems well filled with images for the length, so I'm addidng it here in talk for future reference. -- Infrogmation 01:47, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Portrait of Madame X
Is there a reason why there is no image of Portrait of Madame X on the Sargent page? It seems odd that his favorite, most famous, and best work should be left out.

--Victoria h 20:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps in part because we have a seperate Portrait of Madame X article, linked from this one? I suppose there could be good arguments made either way on including this famous work up front or other excellent though somewhat less familiar pieces here. -- Infrogmation 20:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussing his possible sexual preference
The current section on Relationships is written with unclear language. This sentence is particularly unclear: "Some scholars have suggested that Sargent was homosexual, albeit a non-practicing one; not only because of his personal associations (such as with Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou), but because of the way his sensibility shaped his art."

"albeit a non-practicing one" - I don't know what a "non-practicing" homosexual is. We would not say that someone is a "non-practicing hetereosexual" simply because they did not make notorious if or with whom they were having heterosexual sex.

"not only because of his personal associations" - this phrasing does not clearly tell the reader whether his associations with these men should lead to a greater or lesser implication that he was homosexual. Without more knowledge, a reader may think these were famous heterosexual men whose association would have discouraged Sargent from revealing he was homosexual. It might be best to not mention either man if the nature of his relationship with them cannot be affirmatively stated as "homosexual" or "not homosexual."

This might be more clear (yet still unclear about his associations with the 2 specific men) and give more examples of his appreciation of male sensuality:

"Some scholars have suggested that Sargent was homosexual. He had personal associations with Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou. His male nudes reveal complex and well-considered artistic sensibilities about the male physique and male sensuality.  This can be particularly observed in his portrait of Thomas E. McKeller, but also in Tommies Bathing, nude sketches for Hell and Judgement, and sensual portraits of young men, like Bartholomy Maganosco and Head of Olimpio Fusco.  He also had an exotic 'otherness' implicit in his general work. It has been suggested that it was this quality which appealed to the sympathies of his many Jewish clients which he painted in the 1890s." Onemoreoption 05:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * This rewording regarding the ambiguities of Sargent's personal life is welcome, and just makes good sense. When I see a heading for him reading 'relationships' I think also of the public Sargent, who was comfortable and friendly with painters and kings alike, and reportedly played the piano, at a professional performance level, in social gatherings. JNW 17:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

brooklynmuseum.org external link
This link: Brooklyn Museum Exhibition in 2005 was added to the article by the site owner. In keeping with our guidelines could regular editors of this article check out the link and add it back if you think it appropriate. Thanks. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:31, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
 * the Brooklyn Museum has one of the most extensive collections of Sargent watercolors in existance, so i think so :)

Marchioness Curzon
I have reverted the portrait of the Marchioness for the following reasons: 1. Of his hundreds of portraits and thousands of paintings, this is by no stretch one of Sargent's best or most important works, 2. rather, it seems to have been included in order to link with the new biography on the Marchioness, and 3. its inclusion and subsequent changes to the page's format did no service to its composition. JNW 04:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Now re-introduced as a footnote to article. JNW 05:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I judged it notable because it was his last oil, of a notable person. Article should be more history lesson than art show.It fit.-Marcus 06:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

See my explanation above. The inclusion of the portrait was interesting, but not important in Sargent's career, aside from the accident of it being his last portrait, which does merit a footnote.

If the bio were a history lesson, there would be many portraits of historically more important figures than the Marchioness to include. But it is a biography on the artist, and as such, is well-served to feature several of his greatest paintings. The choice of images and layout of the page (page composition is discussed in Wikipedia's suggestions to editors section) serve a greater purpose than that of an 'art show'--it is Sargent's history. As a result, aesthetic judgments, not just ours as contributors, but those of scholarly historical precedent, are relevant. JNW 12:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

gassed
Am I being slow or does this article fail to make any reference to gassed or Sargent's work as an official war artist? What a complete joke. Dr Spam (MD) 13:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If there's something missing, ADD IT. That's the whole point of wikipedia, friend... :) --  Etacar11   14:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

TerminArtors external link
I have included the following external link to this page: „John Singer Sargent's paintings on TerminArtors”. The linked page displays 439 categorized paintings of the Italian master (as of Oct 10, 2007). TerminArtors is a community based paintings gallery. Abenhakan 21:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Start class?
Surely I am biased for having worked on this article, but I do think it has transcended its current status as "start class". JNW (talk) 03:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm with you. :) Who decides when to change the status? --  Etacar11   13:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Good question--I would think any interested party who has not worked much on the article. Probably we can look up the guidelines for rating articles to find out more. Thanks, JNW (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Mystery age
If Sargent was born in 1856 and died in 1925, how can he possibly have been 74 at the time of his death? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.119.87 (talk) 20:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing this out. I've corrected it. MANdARAX  •  XAЯAbИAM  20:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Grand Central Art Galleries
It's a well written and researched section. My question is, given the relatively small role this played in Sargent's life, does it merit such prominence here? Much of the literature on Sargent doesn't even mention it. Side note: while it was in existence I sat in on a late night poker game with the director and friends. Anyway, I think it's a case of WP:UNDUE, but I hate to remove good text without some consensus. JNW (talk) 22:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Likewise, controversy over the Boston murals receives undue weight, and would be better placed as part of a section on the murals in total. JNW (talk) 13:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Warhol
Aside from his enormous success as a pop artist, and filmmaker Warhol was also a prominent portrait artist who was interviewed quite prominently by Sargent scholar Trevor Fairbrother at the time of the Sargent exhibition at the Whitney. His comments are as relevant as any academic. Articles are not limited by subscribed expert commentary; and Warhol was an experienced artist who clearly knew Sargent well is rightfully quoted in this context. ...Modernist (talk) 05:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Andy Warhol was experienced in his own kind of art, which did not include oil painting. I'm not sure that this statement by him, laconic and opaque, like all his public statements, shows any great insight into Sargent's work, but the context it has now been given ties it in well with the rest of the section. Orapronobis (talk) 16:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Warhol's opinion regarding "mood" is a subjective judgment about a subjective state. As a result of this, it may have very little, if any, communicative value.96.235.138.179 (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2017 (UTC)Horse Cartwright

External links modified
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I have just modified 10 external links on John Singer Sargent. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Use of images
Hi ,

With this edit, I restored the previous version by who spent time culling the gallery to remove images of poor quality, leaving the best images. Wikipedia is not meant to be a vehicle to view all of the works of the artist - that's what commons is for. In my opinion, there are still too many images in the article. There should be just enough to show the types of work done by the artist and it seems that there is a fair amount of duplication of similar images.

You may want to consider working on List of works by John Singer Sargent, like the fuller List of works by Vincent van Gogh or List of works by Frank Weston Benson approaches.–CaroleHenson (talk) 10:25, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Dear CaroleHenson, you reverted also all the work I did this morning, but that is fine, I will not go back and do it again. BTW Hohum replaced in Wikimedia images I uploaded with lower quality images, and again I let it. I accept the decision, and will leave the post as it's, even if, from my point of view is incomplete. I do not see the reason to have a Portraits section on the post and then "another" page with a List of works, therefore I will neither go and work on the other page. If I'm browsing for info, I got tired to jump from page to page, but that is my opinion.--Elisa.rolle (talk) 10:35, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * , I agree with you that the gallery is duplicative of the List of works page.


 * I'll take a look at it and see if there are some images in the gallery that are not in the list of works. Since there is a section in this article for each of his major types of works with examples - and a link to the List of works by John Singer Sargent page, I don't understand why a gallery is needed at all.–CaroleHenson (talk) 10:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The List of works page seems to be just a selection of some of the portraits... and I am guessing mostly oil portraits. I suggest that the gallery images should be merged into the List of works page. The images could be grouped be added chronologically by the date that the image was made. Does anyone have an issue with that approach? Any thoughts about whether the images should be grouped or perhaps in one list that could be sorted?–CaroleHenson (talk) 10:57, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Carole, your idea is good.
 * Elisa, I am confused by your statement that the files I uploaded were of lower quality. Here they are. Which ones?


 * ( Hohum  @ ) 14:23, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * and anyone else that has an opinion,
 * There are a couple of ways to go about organizing the images in List of works by John Singer Sargent - 1) keep them in the current two tables by Paris / London periods (which looks to break by some point in 1885), 2) put them in one large table, like working towards something like List of works by Vincent van Gogh, or 3) group them by types of works, like List of works by Frank Weston Benson - which breaks out portraits, landscapes, etc.


 * In the short run, I'll start sorting items in the current two tables in List of works by John Singer Sargent by year - then alphabetically by name. Then, the images from the gallery can be integrated / moved over based on the approach that makes the most sense.–CaroleHenson (talk) 15:41, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Add a short key for Portrait / Landscape, etc., so it's sortable. Breaking across various tables makes it a pain to do overall date / title order sorts. ( Hohum  @ ) 16:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a plan. I got started on finding sources and sprucing up the Rosina Ferrara article, but will get back to the list when I'm through there.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:24, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

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(Italian-born) American expatriate painter?
It seems Sargent held sole American citizenship. However, spending nearly all his life in Europe, I think the intro sentence should replace “American painter” with “Italian-born American expatriate painter”, or at least “American expatriate painter”/“Expatriate American painter”. PerhapsXarb (talk) 04:18, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

references for his italian citizenship?
he is on category:italian but in Italy we haven't jus soli, so very probably he never was italian citizen.. --2.226.12.134 (talk) 05:02, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

"Art historians generally ignored artists who painted Royalty and 'Society'..."?!
The final sentence of the lede makes this startling claim: "Art historians generally ignored artists who painted Royalty and 'Society' – such as Sargent – until the late 20th century." This is absolutely false. Indeed, court and society portraitists of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries were commonly the most written-about of all painters, from van Dyck to Whistler to Philip de Laszlo. Bricology (talk) 09:03, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Understandable point, but in the context it means modern art historians, from the 1900s till nearly a century later. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:22, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Additional source
This entire journal issue is devoted to Sargent (7 articles, 2 reviews): — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:46, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Visual Culture in Britain, vol. 19, no. 1 (2018) URL access: subscription (to get more than abstracts).

There Is Nothing American About This Dead Guy
Not his birth, nor death (nor grave). His philosophical perspective is decidedly unAmerican and romanticizes the European Ancient Regime. Why does this website have such a hard-on for European nobility (and their American counterparts), and give them the benefit of the doubt on everything? The guy was a first-class fascist. Read what he actually wrote, peasants (as he would've thought of you). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.144.246.119 (talk) 15:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)