Customer Reviews

Sargent Portrait Drawings: 42 Works

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I vision perhaps there are three "kinds" of readers that can benefit from this book.

1) Those who want to learn to copy drawings from the great masters, for practice (to improve drawing skill) or pleasure (to display or show them to their admirers), or both.

2) Those who like to collect works by the great masters.

3) Those who are, like me, looking to see how this portraitist genius (i.e. John Singer Sargent) treats contrast, light, shadow, edges, and so on, in his drawings. They are all in there, for a good price.

The Amazon page-listing for this volume is somewhat misleading - there ARE two pages of text (Selector Trevor J. Fairbrother's brief, insightful introduction), but there are also 42 pages of (paper) plates.

Often dismissed as a mere society portrait painter, the real poignancy of John Singer Sargent's work lay in the truth that the society he recorded was on the point of vanishing with the Great War. This sense is heightened by the form of the works reproduced here - drawings composed in pencil and charcoal. Their Cheshire-Cat-grin sketchiness, the way faces seem to materialise or dematerialise bodiless or skeletal on the page, gives them an overwhelmingly ghostly feel.

The most moving pictures here are of the now-forgotten heiresses, young wives, fresh-faced soldiers, and indulgent or austere parents, refugees from the fiction of Henry James, Edith Wharton and Proust, denied the immortality conferred on Singer's more famous subjects, such as Nijinsky, Myra Hess, Faure or Kenneth Grahame. Singer may not be as remorselessly analytical as his literary peers, but he has a wit, satiric sense and emotional empathy all of his own, burrowing out the melancholy behind the glittering facades. Singer seems particularly inspired by long, swan-like necks, as if their owners' beauty already sang their death. The notorious hostess Mme. Pierre Gautreau reclines on a sofa, bored and miserable as a beached mermaid; Nellie Huxley stares at us with sad, tired eyes.

Conversely, the portraits of imperious grandes dames, such as the Myrna Loy-like Mme. Eugenia Huici Errazuriz, are surprisingly sexy; while the Duchess of Marlborough flirts with gamine charm. Portraits of friends, such as the eccentric composer Dame Ethel Smyth, are more informal and playful. Androgyny is another favourite theme, while the unsigned portrait of working class Italian youth Olimpio Fusco glows with sympathetic homoeroticism. In fact, Singer's defining temperament, judging from this collection, is one of amused curiosity, as he sketches the garish and the gloomy, the restless and the resigned, the social and the solitary.

The sketches of notables are often great fun - a shadow-darkened W.B. Yeats as self-regarding buffoon; Jascha Heifitz in an intense tondo of fiddle-like scribbles, encircling a still white face rapt in concentration; Viscountess Astor lost in folds of Napoleonic grandeur; and a young Ernest Thesiger, displaying impish hints of his most famous future film role, as Dr. Pretorious in 'Bride of Frankenstein'.

This book is one of the best among those in the Dover Art Library. I really like this book because the selection includes many beautifully executed portraits. Sargent's style is at once both romantic and incisive. The portraits are so highly expressive that one is compelled to assume accurate likeness.

John Singer Sargent is a great master of portraiture. This very enjoyable collection does him justice.

Sargent was very talented in the art of drawing. He drew at least 1,500 drawings throughout his long, busy artistic career. His portrait drawings of prominent people are beautiful and very realistic. I liked his drawing of Consuelo Yznaga, Duchess of Manchester. That drawing captured the expression of a vibrant middle aged woman. His nude figures are still the most magnificent expression of manhood. I recommend this book to those who are interested in the many talents of John Singer Sargent or artists looking for inspiration.

If anything at all, _this_ IS the John Singer Sargent book to buy!

John Singer Sargent has once again exemplified his skills as an artist through his GORGEOUS portrait drawings.

Unlike other artists, Sargent conveys emotion - passion - with his use of line, stroke, and tone incomparable to any other artist. (Believe me, Sargent is the Artist of Portraiture). This book inspired my art teacher to go into portraiture. This is perhaps the best collection of Sargent's line work. These 42 Works are VERY resourceful for the drawing student and very enjoyable for the viewer/reader. Sketches depict a wide variety of people (people focused in the fine arts - actors, writers, etc.).

A majority of these portrait drawings are done in charcoal; a few are done in pencil. This book includes an introduction by Trevor J. Fairbrother.

This book is also VERY affordable (gotta love the folks at Dover), so if you decide to take one apart for use as reference, you can always buy another. ^-^

Buy this. You won't be disappointed!

i like these small and inexpensive dover books. this one has some super portraits! --both contour line and charcoal/value drawings.

A good collection of Sargent's portrait drawing that illustrates different techniques and media used in portrait drawings. I got good ideas through looking at drawings and could find some solutions to some problems of mine in portrait drawing. Pictures are large enough to study the details and learn from.