John Singer Sargent’s portrait of
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw packs a punch today as I’m sure she did when first
painted. Painted in 1892, this striking depiction of a young society woman speaks
of gender relations, power and modesty in a time when all these ideas were
beginning to be challenged and redefined.
At the time of painting this work
Sargent was living in London where he had moved in 1886. He was making his
living as a portraitist, painting predominantly female portraits, and in the
period between 1882 and 1904 he exhibited 75 portraits at the Royal Academy in
London. Sargent had spent years carefully establishing himself as a
portraitist, regularly sending work to England and America where he surely
assumed he would one day settle. In his early career, when he was working in
France, his work had been seen as ‘daring and provocative’; Sargent
was aware of the influence of the institution of the Salon, and whereas a more
cautious new artist would have attempted to mould a career by working within
the conventions of such an establishment, Sargent sought to challenge the Salon
and carve out his own modernist style. His work challenged the traditional
understanding of ‘good taste’ and often received high praise from critics,
though in his early career he did not achieve the acclaim and reputation
necessary to receive large amounts of commissions. In 1884, any reputation he
held was shattered by the reception of ‘Madame X’ in the Salon; this actually
received mixed reviews but the condemnation of the Salon ensured a major
setback for the young artist.
John Singer Sargent, Madame X
1884, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Sargent’s portrait of Lady Agnew
was actually instrumental in his return to favour and in marking the start of
his highly successful late career. Although this work was certainly no less
audacious than many of his earlier portraits, it seemed that fashions were
shifting and Sargent’s style was becoming more acceptable. When this painting
was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1893 it received rave reviews with the
London Times stating that it was ‘not
only a triumph of technique [emphasis
original] but the finest example of portraiture in the literal sense of the
word, that has been seen here for a long while’. This work was well received by
the public as well as critics, and launched Lady Agnew as a new society beauty.
But how did Sargent’s conception
of Lady Agnew fit with contemporary attitudes towards women? Many art
historians looking at the depiction of women in art have acknowledged womankind
as a kind of ‘category’ or ‘symbol’. She is representative of a series of
relationships, and also of social order; as Griselda Pollock writes, ‘the
category of Woman is of profound importance to the order of society’.
Misogynist theory is explored further by Pollock in the perceptions of women as
objects to be exchanged between men; as ‘all culture is to be understood as
exchange and therefore as communication’ it is possible to assess
Levi-Strauss’s argument that ‘the exchange of women between men is the
foundation of sociality’.
Such
situations of possession and exchange of women by men in an overt manner are
far from our Lady Agnew, but perhaps in the ownership of such a portrait comes
a sense of possession of the subject.
This painting is of a newly married
woman – Gertrude, the new wife of Sir Andrew Noel Agnew – so unlike many of
Sargent’s female portraits the subject is not an available young debutante. The
attitude of Lady Agnew is very different from the serene and modest painting of
‘The Misses Vickers’; there is a sense that this woman would not allow any
objectification of herself, or any trading in ownership.
John Singer Sargent, The Misses Vickers
1884, oil on canvas, Sheffield City Art Galleries
In his book ‘Ways of Seeing’,
John Berger argues that ‘the social presence of a woman is different in kind
from that of a man.’ Any perception of man is always directly related to
understandings of personal power, whereas ‘a woman’s presence expressed her own
attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her’.Berger claims that women – unlike men – are
raised to be aware of how they appear to the outside world, and through this
she herself becomes the ‘surveyor’ and the ‘surveyed’.
Though
this argument now seems a little dated, such a theory is certainly convincing
for a model of perceptions of women in the late nineteenth century. Lady Agnew
herself is distinctly aware of how she appears; her pose, which we read as
being a kind of commanding nonchalance, is consciously choreographed. But
Berger takes this argument further. He states that these two parts of the
woman’s identity – the surveyor and the surveyed – are male and female
respectively; thus a part of the female herself is masculine. Under this
argument the surveyor is so strongly associated with being masculine that even
the quality found in a woman is characterised as ‘male’. This addresses the so
called ‘politics of the gaze’, asking the question ‘does the process of looking
itself involve relations of power’
and if
so, what are these relations? Berger argues that in these conflicting parts of
the female identity ‘[the woman] turns herself into an object – and most
particularly an object of vision: a sight’.
This is exactly what Sargent’s
portrait is; Lady Agnew is ‘a sight’. All aspects of the painting make it a
sumptuous vision to be devoured by the viewer: the opulent interior, the lavish
dress, the extravagant jewels, Lady Agnew herself, even the materiality of the
brushwork with which Sargent models the subject, all contribute to the spectacle
of the portrait.
It is also worth considering the
role of the public in works such as this, and in the case of this portrait
there were various ‘publics’ to be satisfied. There were the art critics of the
Royal Academy where the work would be displayed, there was the wider crowd of
socialites who would both judge the character and reputation of the sitter and
be potential patrons for Sargent’s future work, there was Sir Andrew himself,
the patron, and finally Lady Agnew. TJ Clark has stated that ‘in the greatest
portraits we can see the tension between the sitter as subject matter and the
sitter as public’
and we certainly get this sense in Sargent’s painting; as already stated, this
work has complex ideas of the gaze, with the subject as an object to be viewed,
but the subject herself has a highly charged gaze of her own, thus complicating
the treatment of her as a sight to be consumed by the public.
If we adopt Gill Perry’s model
for assessing gender in painting, we must consider the gender of the artist and
of the sitter, how gender relations are presented in the work and in a particular
social environment, whether the technique of the work itself is gendered, and
how the gender of the viewer will affect any interpretations.
Firstly,
we can acknowledge the relationship between the male artist and the female
sitter. Sargent maintained that his portraits were entirely about the
appearance about his sitter and that he was not at all concerned with
presenting the personality beneath, so much so that in 1888 he was criticised
by a reviewer in the
New York Times
for painting portraits that were ‘all surface and no soul’ depicting women who
‘[could] hardly be ... as flint and impudent in character as they appear
.
However, certainly from this point in his career, it is likely that this
statement was merely an insurance policy. Indeed, in this portrait there is a
real sense of the connection between the two characters directly involved in
this work. The subject’s gaze, directed towards the artist, with a single
raised eyebrow, seems to offer a challenge; the confidence of the woman is met
by the confidence of Sargent’s brushstrokes, and in this way we have a kind of
audacious interplay between the two characters. The face is the most closely
painted and therefore the focus for the viewer. Sargent is much more concerned
with where the personality of his sitter is concentrated, possibly the least
feminine area of the painting.
The gender relations of the work
are hidden in the understanding of what this painting actually is; the portrait
as a sign of power. Though the subject is a woman, the work is really about the
husband of the sitter who commissioned it, who will eventually own the work and
display it in his house. The title of the work is ‘Lady Agnew of Lochnaw’; the
husband’s title and the husband’s name, no part of this name is carried over
from before marriage: we do not even learn the sitter’s first name. Sargent
understood that it was his job to paint people at their most elegant; his
sitters are always dressed in contemporary high fashion as an expression of the
hierarchical society in which they lived. Furthermore, this is clearly a
contrived composition; the setting is suggestive to a modern-day viewer of a
photographic studio with the chair set before a hung backdrop. The large
gleaming jewel around her neck, the gold bracelet on her wrist and the
sumptuous fabrics of her dress are all included to indicate the wealth of Sir
Agnew. The sitter lounges on a contemporary piece of furniture, indicating the
wealth and good taste of the owner. In the background there is a piece of
patterned fabric which appears to have oriental characters on it. Perhaps this
is a reference to the vogue for oriental objects in Britain in the second half
of the nineteenth century (the necklace also has a sense of the exotic about it
with some sort of delicate blue beading around the outside of the gold
setting); this is again about possession and displaying the status of the
patron.
The technique of the work is also
an interesting point to discuss. There was a general understanding amongst art
critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that certain styles of
painting could be considered more masculine or feminine than others. Such
assumptions were challenged by the Impressionist and Modernist painters, and it
could be argued that the glossy strokes of Sargent challenged ideas of a
masculine style as strongly as those of Manet and Monet. No-one could debate
the masculine tone of the portraits of, for example, Van Dyck, but Sargent’s
voice is softer and more sensitive, concerned with his sitters on an emotional
level. It has been noted that Sargent’s style could be the reason why he
received so many commissions for female portraits as it ‘made him especially
good at interpreting the feminine character’ and certainly, Sargent’s style is
central to the communication of the sentiment of the work.
However, there is a confidence and boldness that prevents his work seeming
effeminate.
It is possible to argue that
Sargent’s portrait of Lady Agnew of
Lochnaw challenges several stereotypical gender assumptions. Sargent’s
subject displays none of the fragility of the female figure, as she fixes the
viewer with a defiant and challenging gaze. She has a real strength of purpose
and self-awareness in her seemingly relaxed pose. Her slender frame fills the
broad chair in which she arranges herself. Although she sits on a floral
patterned chair and she wears an elegant fashionable dress, this portrait does
not emphasise the feminine, either in Lady Agnew’s appearance or character. It
is interesting that the only part of the painting that is most clearly defined
is the head of the sitter, the least feminine part of the painting. She has her
hair pulled back in a manner which denies any ladylike – or even era-specific –
fashion. This area is also where the darkest tones in the work are
concentrated, again emphasising the focus of the work on the sitter’s head. She
holds a flower in her right hand, a feminine symbol, though whether there was
any specific symbolism attached to this flower is unclear, and Sargent does not
accentuate this area of the painting, rather camouflaging it in the similar
tones of the dress. Perhaps this particular piece of iconography is more about
creating a sense of togetherness with the compositional features of the work
than any suggestion of femininity; Sargent paints the petals of the flower with
the same materiality that is afforded to the sash of the dress, and the motif
of the flower is repeated in the fabric design of the backdrop to the right of
the composition.
Though there are obviously strong
themes of ‘possession’ in any interpretation of this work, the sitter does not
appear to be naive to this. Perhaps, like Sargent, she chooses to accept and
work within the status quo in order to secure herself a comfortable and
relatively free existence. The success of this portrait launched Lady Agnew on
to London society as a celebrated beauty, and on the back of this fame, she was
able to set up her own salon.
A Companion Guide to the National
Gallery of Scotland, (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2000).
Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin books,
1977).
Clarke, T.J., ‘On the Social
History of Art’, in T.J. Clarke, Image of
the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1973).
Kilmurray, Elaine and Ormond,
Richard, John Singer Sargent: The Early
Portraits, Complete Paintings Volume I (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1998).
Nochlin, Linda, ‘Women, art and
power’ in Women, art and power and other
essays (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989).
Ormond, Richard, ‘Introduction’
in Marc Simpson Uncanny Spectacle: The
Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1997).
Perry, Gill, ‘Introduction:
gender and art history’ in Gill Perry, Gender
and Art (London: Open University, 1999).
Pollock, Griselda, ‘Women, Art
and Ideology: Questions for Feminist Art Historians’, in Women’s Art Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1. Spring – Summer, 1983 (USA:
Women’s Art, Inc., 1983).
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