John
Singer Sargent,
the son of an American doctor, was born in Florence in 1856. He studied
painting in Italy and France and in 1884 caused a sensation at the
Paris Salon with his painting of Madame Gautreau. Exhibited as Madame
X, people complained that the painting
was provocatively erotic.
The scandal persuaded Sargent to move to England and over the next
few years established himself as the country's leading portrait
painter. This included portraits of Joseph
Chamberlain (1896), Frank Swettenham
(1904) and Henry James (1913).
Sargent made several visits to the USA where as well as portraits
he worked on a series of decorative paintings for public buildings
such as the Boston Public Library (1890) and the Museum of Fine Arts
(1916).
In 1918 Sargent was commissioned to paint a large painting to symbolize
the co-operation between British and American forces during the First
World War. Sargent was sent to France with the British painter,
Henry Tonks. One day Sargent visited a
casualty clearing station at Le Bac-de-Sud. While at the casualty
station he witnessed an orderly leading a group of soldiers that had
been blinded by mustard gas. He used
this as a subject for a naturalist allegorical frieze depicting a
line of young men with their eyes bandaged. Gassed
soon became one of the most memorably haunting images of the war.
While in France Sargent also painted The
Interior of a Hospital Tent (1918)
and A Street in Arras (1918).
John Singer Sargent died in 1925.
John Singer Sargent,
Gassed (1918)
Forum Debates
Art, Resistance and Propaganda in the Great War
War Propaganda Bureau
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