John Singer Sargent

Visual Art Commentary: Boston and Sargent, For Better, For Worse.

December 31, 2023
Posted in , ,

Boston’s veneration of John Singer Sargent is awkwardly implicated in the city’s habit of denouncing modern art.

Read More

Visual Arts Review: “Fashioned by Sargent” — Round Two

December 8, 2023
Posted in , ,

Was John Singer Sargent just a talented flatterer of his wealthy patrons or was there more to him?

Read More

Visual Arts Commentary: “Fashioned by Sargent” — The Elephant in the Room

November 9, 2023
Posted in , ,

The MFA’s Fashioned by Sargent alludes — only at whisper level — to the fact that many of John Singer Sargent’s clients represent questionable ideals.

Read More

Visual Arts Review: “Fashioned by Sargent” — Round One

November 6, 2023
Posted in , ,

Is the artist’s direction of clothing choices — and how he painted the garments — a sufficiently compelling inquiry in which to anchor an exhibit?

Read More

Visual Arts Review: Venice Through American Eyes — At the Mystic Seaport Museum

December 1, 2022
Posted in , ,

The allure of Venice, as crafted by Venetian artisans, seduced American artists and collectors, who traveled across the world and brought back their prizes to American homes and eventually to museums.

Read More

Book Review: “The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World” — Forever Out of Reach

November 7, 2022
Posted in , , ,

Paul Fisher’s back-and-forth tease about John Singer Sargent’s sexuality starts out as intriguing, then becomes distracting, and finally irritating as the biographer never quite closes in on his targets.

Read More

Visual Arts Commentary: Museums are Getting Woke for Real

February 25, 2020
Posted in , ,

By digging deep into Thomas McKeller, the Gardner Museum has not only resurrected a lost figure (and lost music, and “lost” art) but revealed and contributed to an ongoing history.

Read More

Visual Arts: Ambergris and Alchemy — A Pilgrimage to John Singer Sargent’s “Fumée d’Ambre Gris”

January 27, 2013
Posted in ,

At times I leave off my avid samplings of one entrancement after another in a great museum. Instead, I make a pilgrimage dedicated to a single work, such as John Singer Sargent’s intoxicating woman in white in “Fumée d’Ambre Gris” at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Read More

Recent Posts