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Egyptian
Girl
1891
Private
collection on
loan to
the
Art Institute of
Chicago
Oil on
canvas
185.4
x 58.4 cm (73
x 23 in.)
Jpg: John
Singer Sargent's Exotics
The nude Egyptian
Girl, I
believe, is the only female nude that Sargent did in oil. As the name
implies,
the painting was done in Egypt on his trip there to do research for the
Boston Public Library murals. In some ways it harks back to the
Velazquez's Venus at her Mirror. Like Sargent, this was
Velazquez's only female
nude and both men paint their subject facing away. Although it is not
known
for sure that Venus at her Mirror was the painting that
influenced
Sargent's Egyptian Girl, the importance of Velazquez work in
influencing
Sargent's art is well documented and if it wasn't on his mind, the
coincidences
are remarkable. Notice, particularly, the very delicate modulation of
skin
color in Sargent's painting which Velazquez used as well.
In any regards,
Sargent knew he needed
to paint a great female nude in order to demonstrate his virtuosity;
and
without it, his oeuvre would remain incomplete. From a long line
of Great Masters, from a long line of paintings of the female nude,
Sargent
gives us his submission to the discourse. The public embraced it
whole heartedly -- both at the New
English Art Club exhibition of 1891, and at the World Columbian
Exposition,
Chicago of 1893.
At seventy-three
inches high, or
slightly over six feet tall, this is not just a study, but an adroit
statement.
by Natasha
Wallace
Copyright
2000 All rights
reserved
From: Francesca Miller
<franc esca. miller@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004
The Nude
Egyptian Girl
Was she a slave, a servant, a child sold into sexual bondage or the
concubine of a wealthy man? Perhaps this ravishing adolescent
with the golden skin and nubile curves was an urchin Sargent approached
on a Cairo street. Is it possible that upon her initial encounter with
the master that this nameless girl was taken with his charm and innate
kindness? From the sweet reverie of her expression, she had no
fear about posing nude for this cultivated gentleman who addressed her
with a gentility usually reserved for wellborn European women.
The model possesses a sensuality and self-assurance remarkable in one
so young: yet, as the beauty with the tawny skin absent-mindedly braids
her coiling hair, there is an adolescent innocence and yes, nobility in
her nakedness. Sargent found a patrician essence in this child that
made this painting far more arresting then a vapid society
portrait. The uncovered majesty of this girl is far more
aristocratic than that any London matron garbed in the finest satins
and velvets.
The Egyptian Nude Girl is also a study in Sargent, for instead of
painting a study of a demimonde in a Parisian salon, he choice a young
woman of color for his female nude. Since Sargent viewed Victorian
concepts of race and ethnicity with distaste and derision, it was
natural that two of his most notable nude studies were of people of
color. Approximately thirty years later, the master  used
his
magical brushes to paint his Nude Study of Thomas McKeller, a muscular
Bostonian who coincidently was a person of color. McKeller posed
unselfconsciously in a full frontal posture while Victorian propriety
dictated that our Egyptian beauty stand with her back towards us.
Perhaps in light of recent analysis of the master’s sexuality, some
might consider that since her pose lacked “the exultant nakedness of
McKeller’s” evidence of a dimmer erotic energy for his female subjects.
Still, those of us who are transformed and transfixed by the work of
the master bow to voluptuous mystery and quiet sensuality conveyed by a
hint of bosom and bronzed, rounded buttocks. Her name maybe lost
to us but she is now immortal.
Notes:
Special thanks to Francesca Miller, of
California, a friend
of the JSS Gallery.
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