John Singer Sargent, Dr. Pozzi at Home, 1881, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Why the decision of starting this blog with "The Man in the Red Robe" ?
I was attracted by the title of a book by Julian Barnes, just published by Einaudi, which shows a detail of the famous painting on the cover.
I have been studying the works of John Singer Sargent for some time and I have long dwelt on this curious image. I wondered why Dr. Pozzi, a famous doctor, wealthy, well inserted in the society of his time, had asked to be portrayed in his room attire. The refined nonchalance of a dandy? Or was it the painter's idea, fascinated by the possibility of practicing various shades of red: the curtain, the carpet, the robe? The man's pose is so noble that, changing his clothing, we could imagine him in an official public context rather than in the privacy of his home.
Julian Barnes dwells on his hands, with their long, delicate fingers, like those of a pianist or, indeed, a surgeon. The left hand rests on his hip, or rather, at a closer look, it is held to one of the two cords that make up his belt. This is a minor artifice to avoid conferring an excessive solemnity to a pose that the figurative tradition often reserved for heroic figures (I would recall, for example, Verrocchio's David, or Donatello's bronze David, both in the Bargello Museum in Florence). The other hand lingers with a finger inside a small flying loop. Familiar, domestic gestures, like the white shirt that appears with its ruffles around the neck and wrists.
The man is handsome, noble, virile. He is looking at someone or something to his left, or perhaps he is just lost in thought.
John Singer Sargent was a famous portraitist, but I also greatly love his watercolors, such as those he made in Italy in 1907.
John Singer Sargent, Florence - Fountain, Boboli Gardens, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
It was a blue day. Blue are the trees, great indistinct masses imbued with browns and blues. Blue is the long shadow that the plants cast on the ground where the sunlit part stands out even whiter. The sculptures, with their large shaped basins and the figures rising above them, do not seem to be made of stone but of some soft material, shaped by the changing light.
Symphony in White no 1
James Abbott Mc Neil Whistler (1834-1903)
Symphony in White no 1 (The_White_Girl)_1862, National Gallery, Washington Julian Barnes' book depicts in a vast fresco several protagonists of the Belle époque.
Among them is James Whistler, a sophisticated aesthete. A theorist of the L'art pour l'art movement, he declared his principles from the very title of his works. Rejecting traditional titling, he took his cue from the musical lexicon as in the portrait of a young woman that becomes Symphony in White no 1 (The White Girl)_1862 or the portrait of his mother, hardly recognisable in Arrangement en gris et noir no 1.
A young woman is depicted standing in a room with few decorative elements: a white curtain decorated with soft patterns; a rich flowered carpet; the skin of a bear accompanied by its head. The light floods the room and gives emphasis to the light texture of the woman's dress. We are immediately struck by the painter's skill in capturing the light muslin of the curtain, the soft fur of the bear and the shiny fabric of the dress.
The garment is very chaste, almost like a First Communion dress. It is close-fitting, foot-length, with a small train, and held under the breasts by a small belt with a bow. But let's not be deceived: in the midst of so much white, stands out the mass of hair in the most beautiful Titian red, surrounding a face with a warm complexion and vermilion lips.The woman, Joanna Heffernan, model and lover of the painter, looks at us confidently, certain of her beauty. She was probably a courtesan, but the painter made her an emblem of purity, so much so that some critics have seen almost a religious symbolism in the painting. The girl holds a small branch with a white flower in her right hand, which some have identified as a lily.
The bear, with its mouth wide open, has something to say in the context of such grace. Frozen forever in the act of mauling prey, it is an effective contrast to the angelic female face.
Virtue and sin, someone said!
James Abbott Mc Neil Whistler (1834-1903)
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871
Musée D'Orsay, Paris
An elderly woman sits in a very sober setting, almost like a monastic cell. The furniture is very modest: a dark curtain, a chair, a small bench where here feet are resting, a painting on the wall. It is an engraving of Black Lion Wharf, a copy of a work by the same artist, made in his early years in London (1859).
The woman is depicted in side view with her hands clasped in her lap. Her face is severe, her expression fixed. Her figure, wrapped in a heavy dark dress, is hidden from view. A single line defines the profile of his face and body. Only two colours, black and grey, make up the overall palette of the painting. The construction, rigorously defined by the verticals of the curtain and the horizontals of the skirting board and floor, helps to place the woman in a timeless, almost iconic dimension.
This is confirmed by the fact that many years later, in 1934, Whistler's work, deprived of its original title and becoming The Mother tout court, was used in the United States for a commemorative stamp "In memory and in honour of the mothers of America".
Who knows what Whistler would have thought of it! Great fortune for the work, but perhaps too popular a use for the painter's tastes.
References and mentioned works of art: Verrocchio's and Donatello's David:
John Singer Sargent, Dr. Pozzi at Home, 1881, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
John Singer Sargent, Florence - Fountain, Boboli Gardens, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
James Abbott Mc Neil Whistler (1834-1903) Symphony in White no 1 (The_White_Girl)_1862, National Gallery, Washington
James Abbott Mc Neil Whistler (1834-1903) Arrangement en gris et noir n. 1, 1871 Museo D’Orsay, Parigi
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