Just Blotted

"The Prophets," by Sargent Added Greatly to His Fame
New York Times
December 7, 1913
Submitted by John Lockwood

“To Illustrate the monotheistic and spiritual principles of the Jewish religion” –-such was the tremendous task which John Singer Sargent set himself when he started to paint his great frieze “The Prophets” in the Boston Public Library. . . (Go to)

Andrea Costa
1/11/2006

Many many congratulations for your superb and unique work, Natasha!

Here is my contribution to your great website (just in time for the 150th year from JSS birthday!)

It is the drawing by Andrea Del Sarto from which JSS probably had copied his drawing that is shown in the website.

The Del Sarto drawing of course was preparatory for the Madonna delle Arpie, that is correctly shown together with the Sargent's one.

I hope you find it interesting.

Thank you for your attention and, again, many congratulations and happy 150th birthday!  (Go to)

(Editor's note - Happy Birthday Indeed! )

Now Showing

Impressionism Abroad: Boston and French Painting

Norton Museum, Palm Beach, FL
19 November 2005 -- 5 March 2006

Explores the influence of the French Impressionist painters on Boston’s artists and collectors during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The exhibition, drawn largely from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (USA), will tell the story of Boston’s early recognition of and enthusiasm for the work of the Impressionists and the French Barbizon School, in particular their landscape painting. Work by American artists such as William Morris Hunt, John Singer Sargent and Childe Hassam will be placed alongside paintings by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro as well as earlier French painters such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Jean-François Millet, who they also admired and emulated. (Go to)

Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama

The Jewish Museum, New York
December 02, 2005 - April 02, 2006 (Go to)

An aptly titled exhibition for a remarkable woman. See Srah Bernhardt at the JSS Gallery  (Go to)

Comming Soon

Philip Resheph
12/19/2005

Happy Christmas

Boldini
1845-1931

Matt Davies
1/8/2006

John Lockwood had sent me the article on the Prophets (along with a lot of other stuff I still need to get to) a little while back. The packet he sent is pure gold – and this is just the first of it. But getting it up online has been incredibly slow, and for that I apologize.

One other thing, which is pretty important, remember to clear out your computer’s temporary memory (the cache) so you will see the changes at some of the older pages.

For the longest time, I've known the Boston Public Library section has been overdue for reworking. I never have been satisfied with it, and much of my frustration has been over my own inability to achieve the technical manipulation with images, for supportive documents, to give me what I thought was required in understanding Sargent’s murals there. I’m not very savvy in the technical aspect of web design but hopefully, with this new Sargent Hall Floor Plan (Go to) this will go a long way and letting you explore his art.

I’m pretty proud about this actually. I have never attempted anything like it – well, that’s not quite true, I did attempt it with the Venice section but it didn’t work because I just didn't have the right programs nor the knowlege. After 10 hours, I can say I've taught myself – through the help of a book on Photoshop.

I don’t want to guide you to every little minutiae of change in the BPL section – and there is a lot of change including a number of beautiful drawings that are from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston such as the Mysteries of the Rosary. I want you to have the joy of discovering it and letting it unfold in front of you, but the other key page you shouldn't miss is a floor plan of the Library (Go to) which I’ve added so you can understand where, within the building, Sargent Hall is located.

Happy surfing

Recently here in the states, last year actually, the exhibition of portraits of children by John Singer Sargent really highlighted a wonderful niche in Sargent’s oeuvre. But of course Sargent wasn’t the only one of his friends who had a flare for the art of portraying children.

It’s been a couple of years now – as you can see it sometimes takes time to bring these things out  -- Françoise Bernard Briès  had written me about a very old book she has always owned. A book for children in fact, illustrated by none other than Paul César Helleu – a painter that we both love. She told me in her way (she struggles with english and I struggle with french) that Hellue had supplied these illustrations – quite beautiful lithographs actually to a book of verse for little girls which has always touched her heart and thinks is so beautiful. After many letters and strained dictionaries between us, a very dear and close friendship has developed. You see, she thought it would be a great idea to share Helleu’s drawings with the rest of you and I couldn’t have agreed more. She wanted to send me the book -- I would have none of that (seeing it get lost in the mail or me having a hard time getting it back to her) so the idea sat for some time until recently when I got this simple sweet note: 

"Hello Natasha, Thinking about you and seeing JSS Gallery and your blog ... Love   FBB "  (Go to)



Jon Aymon
1/6/2005

There is the one by Sargent of the woman inhaling ambergris smoke. I had not known that that was done; I can't imagine surviving it....but you might find this interesting (Go to)

Françoise Bernard Briès
1/6/2005
 
I am in connection with the direct descendants of Catarina Vlasto, whom Sargent painted, they live in England. They have a splendid portrait of Catarina as young child! (Go to)

Wilfredo Fernandez
1/6/2006

I am a member of the family of Benjamin Nunez del Castillo, now in Miami since 1964. Sargent was indeed a long time friend of my cousin Ben, Madame x was a cousin of his [Ben's] on his mother side of the family, and according to family info, Sargent was sort of inlove with her. The desendants of Ben are all italians and thats where they are, they still hold several of his paintings.  (Go to)