Word: sargent
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Through Aug. 20. "John Singer Sargent: Studies for the Murals at the MFA and the Boston Public Library." Murals painted by American artist John Singer Sargent are celebrated in conjunction with the shared anniversaries of the two institutions: the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Museum and the 100th anniversary of the Library's building in Copley square...
...basic legend about the woman behind the Museum--that she was an eccentric Boston socialite who stipulated in her will that the arrangement of the pieces could not be changed after her death. True--but did you also know that she was friends with people such as John Singer Sargent, Sarah Bernhardt and Henry James? Or that if the conditions her will were violated, the museum was to go to Harvard College, and sold to provide an increase in faculty salaries and student scholarships...
...vibrant picture of Gardner. Some pieces, like the will and an architectural drawing of the building, explain the Museum itself--a building designed to house the more than, 2,500 art objects spanning 3,000 years, all collected within 25 years. Other objects, especially the portraits by John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, highlights the woman herself. Newspaper clippings from Boston papers around the turn of the century attest to society's fascination with Mrs. Jack; one article remarks on her "coiffure adornment"--a pair of immense diamonds attached to wire antenae, which she was spotted wearing at a social...
...artist at the time used such sources with as much aplomb. Scorning British good taste and the Edwardian artist's role as the groom of new aristocrats -- a task he left to what he called the "wriggle and chiffon" school of portraiture, led by the American expatriate John Singer Sargent -- Sickert went down a few class notches, looking for a virile, demotic way of painting that did something more with popular culture than peer at it from above...
...example, the life-size portrait "The Spanish Dancer" depicts a figure essentially the same as the main figure in "El Jaleo." As the exhibition tags note, "The Spanish Dancer" "represents Sargent's first complete treatment of the subject he would again take up in the expanded composition of "El Jaleo.'" Her arms and neck show the strength of an accomplished dancer; the blur of her swirling clothing shows the movement of the dance. Singer displays his skill in the precise rendering of her clothing...