“Portraits of Places”: A Perspective of Sargent’s Venice

Candice Chow, Princeton Class of 2009

“While there is not a trace of old carving or Gothic architecture, yet it somehow gives the grace and mystery of Venice as Ruskin’s painfully elaborated drawings do not…They have the same qualities as the portraits, they might well be called Portraits of Places…” - Samuel Isham, The History of American Painting

Lacking the architectural details that Isham found so prevalent in other works of Venice, Sargent’s series of oil paintings spanning 1880 to 1882 are indeed delicate paintings of Venetians and their humble surroundings. As a lover of Venice, Sargent initially wanted to portray a Venice that was real to its natives. Thus, he focused on the neglected side of Venice, portraying the small, dark alleyways and undistinguished buildings inhabited by the working-class, and experimented with “telescopic” perspective. In doing so, he was able to depict a sense of “grace and mystery.” Yet, even Isham admits that these early Venetians paintings lack the architectural details so akin to our idea of Venetian grandeur. Moreover, can these paintings really be called “Portraits of Places” by “the outstanding portrait painter of his generation” (Kilmurray and Ormond 23), when in actuality they focus on people rather than the places? Was this really Sargent’s ideal representation of his favorite city?

Well, by looking at Sargent’s later watercolor series of Venetian buildings in the early 1900s, we can infer that the answer is “no.” Although he captured the perspective of native Venetians in his earlier works, he did not capture all that Venice had to offer, the real “grace and mystery” that has drawn thousands to experience its grandeur. This is perhaps why he returned to Venice twenty years later: to tackle some unfinished business in order to paint the true “Portraits of Places.” And he did so by combining the beauty and intricacy of Venetian architecture with the viewpoint of a local Venetian: namely by moving from the alleyways onto the water. By doing this, he could obtain new angles to view famous Venetian architecture, in such a way that only someone familiar with the city—a local—would know where Sargent was painting. Moreover, this time he had acquired some valuable experience; he was now one of the foremost portraitists in the world, and he could now highlight the exquisite buildings of Venice with the same sort of focus used for his portraits without the presence of people in his paintings. Instead of human sitters, Sargent now turned to other elaborately adorned subjects, the inanimate wonders of Venetian buildings. He could not shake off what he knew best: how to grab the essence of a living human being in a two-dimensional way; thus, he used this experience to paint these “portraits” of buildings, which were very much alive with history and mystique. Thanks to his experience as a portraitist, his perspective of buildings changed between this twenty year gap from an emphasis on people to a “gondola perspective," which gave him an increasingly close view of Venetian architecture, and ultimately, it is his second series that demonstrate his expertise and his nostalgic eye for a classic Venice.

The Exhibit
Why Venice?
Sargent as a Portraitist
Sargent's Early Series
A New Perspective
Floating Around Venice
From the Gondola
Exalting the Salute
Conclusion
Works Cited
About the Author

The Gallery
A Biography
The Venetian Interiors
The Gondola
Sargent's Friends in Venice