What's
New
What's
New Page December 2003
January
31, 2003
A
major exhibition of Sargent's art is opening in LA called "Sargent
and Italy"
January
30, 2003
In August
of 2002 Talkcity, the server where this site was first housed, went
under.
Amazingly, I was that
close (Natasha holds up her finger and thumb) to losing everything. By
pure dumb luck, I had started the JSSGallery.org the previous summer
and
had been moving a lot of the pages over to the new server. When
Talkcity
bit the dust with all those other Dot.coms (I guess there really isn't
any free lunch) I had the core pages moved.
Believe it or
not, it's still not
completely moved (what's not moved just comes up as a failed link now)
but I find that revisiting something I've done once is kind of like
pulling
teeth.
Now six
months later, I ask myself,
what's new?
Gobs!
Tons!
The thing has
been growing organically,
but for you long time fans of Sargent and this site, I'm sure it must
be
about as exciting as watching grass grow. One big thing has changed, at
least as it relates to my thinking of "what's new". I decided,
instead
of running it like a personal journal of my discovery and pegging day
by
day what I do, I really needed to work on getting the site into a
cohesive
body and that meant, at least up until now, stepping away from my
announcements.
I needed to focus on filling out some of the text on some of the
paintings
and explaining who these other people are in and around Sargent's life.
Accentually,
I've seen the site growing
in terms of levels of complexity. The first thing, of course, was to
get
images of Sargent's work online. That was pretty basic. Secondly, was
to
connect these paintings within the chronology of his life so a person
could
understand Sargent's own progression. That is, and remains, the main
format
of the whole website, and personally I think the most interesting and
rather
unique way in which to understand the artist. But once I have that in
place,
and I think it's pretty much in place now (and only continues to grow
as
I add paintings) I wanted the reader to be able to move horizontally as
well as vertically. In other words, I wanted a reader to be able to
move
around the site in different ways beyond just from the thumbnail pages
and depending on the level of complexity that they wanted to explore.
The
best example of this is my take on Venice -- and all the paintings
related
to Santa
Maria della Salute grouped together -- for example.
I think you
can see how easily these
things can develop such as his mural work at the Boston
Public Library, or the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston; and then there is the essay in Harpers
magazine by Henry James and more recently the excerpt I've included
from W.
Graham Robertson autobiography which I find wonderfully
fascinating.
That has been
my general idea, but
its all kind of loosely held together by vague notions. I mean I don't
sit down each time and say "this is what I'm going to work on and will
keep at it until it's done." Quite honestly I'd get bored, and would
have
given up a long time ago.
Another huge
evolution in my thinking
is in how I approach the forum section. It has become very clear that
instead
of having a separate section of forum entries, I needed to attach the
letters
right under each painting where they apply -- that is for those that
are
one painting specific. I've also discovered that I needed to get out of
the way and let people say what they have to say. By impulse, I felt it
was impolite to not respond, but I see more and more that it doesn't
work
that way from a reader's standpoint - some things I don't need to show
a response from me. The problem with having the letters at the
painting
page, of course, is in linking them at a forum index -- it's a taxing
problem
and consumes a lot of time -- that I haven't yet worked out.
Many of my
friends who have written
find that I haven't responded to some very good input they sent. This
has
been the most frustrating thing to me. My "to do" list grows longer and
I might have alienate some people from wanting to add more -- you got
to
jump while the iron is hot or they lose interest -- which is
understandable.
I have items from last August still unresolved -- what can I say, there
is only a finite amount of time and the number of balls in the air only
grows more numerous.
As I read
back over this list of
logistics, I realize I'm not doing my "what's new" entry any justice.
The
thing that propels me forward is the endless fascination of the
discovery.
Very little time is actually devoted to thinking about logistics,
rather what I hope to find in the next harvest of this amazing artist
--
his art and the people apart of his life, as well as where it may take
me. It's really a shame I can't bottle the experience, capture it in
some
way and let you experience it in the same way I have. Each new page
uploaded,
each new side bar off onto another artist is almost like an epiphany
for
me -- a "Wow" moment -- a discovery. It's like a drug and it
doesn't
really matter what I set my microscope on to get that rush. It's silly,
I realize, but there are clearly benefits to being easily
entertained.
I'm trying to
think back at some
of those more memorable "wow" moments this past six months. Seeing
things
and how they are interconnected is a big one for me, such as seeing
Carolus-Duran's
"Danae"
to Sargent's Sketch
of Cellini's "Perseus"; The sketches of the Queen
mother by Sargent and then the paintings by Philip
Alexius de Laszlo. There is Sargent's "At
the Forge" and Edwin Austin Abbey's "Men at an Anvil".
Another
form of a rush for me is when I hear from decedents of one of the
people
painted by Sargent such as when Fred de Bradeny and his mother wrote
about Mrs.
George Swinton and then learning she is related to Tilda
Swinton
(or I suppose it's the other way around); and when Alexandre Tissot
Demidoff
wrote about Princess
Demidoff and the beautifully rich and colorful
family history -- My God, it ties in with Napoleon Bonaparte, those
beautiful Italian Villas, and with connections to so many other artists
-- those pages aren't completely finished yet.
Some of the
things that tickles my
fancy are pretty basic, but even in their relative simplicity I find it
endlessly fascinating -- You could call them the juxtaposition pages.
Instead
of just citing another artists work that Sargent copied from or worked
with, you can actually see an image of the work -- that always gives me
that "Wow" moment, such as Meeting
of Mary and Elisabeth after Luca della Robbia; and a big
one was the Duke
of Marlborough and Families in Juxtaposition with Joshua Reynolds'
painting.
Of some of
the single paintings that
had a high "Wow" moment were Eleanore
Duse both in the story and the power of the painting; Miss
Carey Thomas and her life story along with how she related to Mary
E. Garrett and The
Four Doctors.
Zuleika
was a big one because it tied in with Max
Beerbohm and I have fun comparing the Bibles version of the story
of
Joseph and the Qur'an's version and then reading about Max's book
(which
I haven't explained yet). Sargent's "Tamara
Karsavina in the Title Role of 'Thamar'" was another one of
those
moments because I had always found the drawing odd and as a result
really
was curious as to who she was.
These are
just some of the highlights
Still, the
story here is not about
what I've been up to as much as it's about what others have done to
help.
It has been from you, the reader, that has shaped the evolution of this
site more than anything else and continues to be the source of an
endless
pool of inspiration for me.
Matt Davies,
an Edwardian aficionado
bar none, has stepped out of nowhere and has contributed enormously --
helping me connect dots with many of these images and names. He has
certainly
defined the standard of a friend of the JSS Gallery and has been very
understanding
of the glacier speed by which I move.
Let me give
you an example of what
I think is the coolest thing -- Wings of a butterfly I call them. Back
in 1999 (I think) Bert sent me a scan of a "wee fridge magnet" of a
painting
by Boldini of Lady
Decies. In April 2002, three years later, Nicholas F.
Warner
wrote about her bing his father's godmother. In the summer of 2002,
Matt
Davies, got the books Nicholas was talking about, read them, and then
wrote
a piece on Lady Decies, and then just this last month Andrew Moore
followed
up with some additional things -- I mean to tell you -- WOW! That is
just
so cool and it all started by a simple gesture from Bert which had
nothing
to do with me. Who knew what that gesture would eventually create in
the
reverberations and waves that came after. . . .
You see, this
just doesn't translate
as profoundly as it happens in "real time"; but all this shows up
unsolicited
in my e-mailbox, unannounced -- Bingo -- it's just there one day --
like
a present. It's incredibly rewarding to see that other people have
embrace
what I'm trying to do -- and I got to tell you these people are, quite
obviously, bright, educated, sophisticated individuals -- the exact
target
audience I like to think of myself writing to.
So what's
new? . . . .
A lot.
Back in
September Michele Lener,
from Italy wrote about a major exhibition of Sargent's art which ran
from
September through January 6th at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Florence
called
"Sargent and Italy". The link
he sent showed imaged of about a dozen new paintings I hadn't had
at
my site. The show has more than 75 paintings relating to Sargent's
connection
to that culturally rich country. Back here in the States, things are
gearing
up as the show is coming to open at the at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on February 2nd. And a new
book
is out which companies the exhibition. The show will run from February
2 through May 11 and then travel to the Denver
Art Museum: June 28 through September 21, 2003.
So what's
new? . . . . . well, the
fun, of course, has been letting you find out for yourself -- leaving
little
presents for you to unwrap. I have written text on more than a dozen
paintings
(maybe two-dozen), added better and/or larger images on many more, Matt
Davies' has submitted a huge number of "mug" drawings and profile bios
as well as a section on Philip
Alexius de Laszlo which has all kinds of parallels to Sargent.
There
have been a number of other artists that I continue to work on -- which
you can see the list grow from the Thumbnail
Index page. There have been a number of people who have sent me
links
to new paintings or scanned images which I continually find in my
mailbox.
I think it's
safe to say, that if
you haven't been through my site since last August 9th, it's changed a
lot.
To all the
friends of the JSS Gallery,
I can't thank you enough for your help and support. I haven't fogotten
you -- just been very busy trying to make this even better.
Best wishes
Natasha
Wallace
From:
Maurizio Ruzzi
Congratulations
for the wonderful
site. . . Also, in case you don't know, a link you may find
interesting
is the Derby
museum. The
site is not that
much, but I find
Joseph Wright a very interesting artist, and there it is possible to
find
much more reproductions of his artworks
than anywhere
else.
In fact I
just wanted to collaborate
a bit and the comments above where the first things that came to my
mind.
Congratulations again,
Maurizio
Ruzzi
What's
New Page Spring/Summer 2002
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