John Singer Sargent

I was doing a PC desktop makeover the other day--searching for something spring-y/Easterish and I happened upon The Art Renewal Ctr's GINORMOUS section of John Singer Sargent work. (The ARC , by the way, is a terrif site, very high up on my faves list). I'd heard of Sargent before, of course, but didn't realize until the other day that I rather dig his stuff. Plus, I'd had no idea he was such an accomplished chap. The ARC lists him as an "American painter, sculptor, draftsman, portraitist, muralist, watercolorist & guitarist ". The guitar too, eh? Sheeesh, overachieve much there, guy? Anyways, was taken with a lot of his work, and for my spring-y desktop image I went with this one.

Considering the whack weather these past 2 days, methinks it mighta been premature to run with a spring motif, but ohhh well.

Sargent's principal schtick was portraits, and he did lots of famous people: Claude Monet, Henry James, and Teddy Roosevelt to name a few. I was particularly intrigued by this portrait. It's interesting how they're standing... the wife is out front and, accordingly, is projecting a very lively, outgoing air with her grin and her hand on her hip like that. But then the husband is in the background a bit and rather obscured by shadows-- which I suppose one could interpret in a grim way...like he is LOOMING there, like some brooding Blackbeard figure. However, I suspect it was more like a marriage of opposites sort of deal, where he balanced her vivaciousness and extroversion by being more soft-spoken, behind-the-scenes type hubby. Yinned her yang, so to speak. Sad (but bittersweet) backstory here, I actually read up on the subjects (he's an interesting dude in his own right, an architect who designed a lot of stuff in NYC) namely Mr & Mrs Isaac Newton Phelps-Stokes . According to this City Journal article -" In the 1930s, however, a series of strokes had left her speechless and paralyzed. Stokes nevertheless persisted in his belief that her mental faculties remained intact, and for the four or five years left to her he spent most of his time at her bedside, reading to her and telling her jokes, and wheeling her through Central Park."

I know, right?? Awful but beautiful. When you look at the portrait in light of those facts, it kind of takes on a deeper meaning. It made it seem very poignant to me anyways.

By the way, I apologize for writing a post about art and then not having any pictures in it. Kind of lame of me. But my pic posting skills seem to be on the fritz these days, therefore this blog is taking an image hiatus for a bit....until whatever time Blogger sees fit to stop being a petulant beee-yotch. Again--sorry!!