the good she has done him.

JOHN S. SARGENT

I was on the point of beginning this sketch of the work of an artist to
whom distinction has come very early in life by saying, in regard to the
degree to which the subject of it enjoys the attention of the public,
that no American painter has hitherto won himself such recognition from
the expert; but I find myself pausing at the start as on the edge of a
possible solecism. Is Mr. Sargent in very fact an American painter?
The proper answer to such a question is doubtless that we shall be well
advised to pretend it, and the reason of this is simply that we have
an excellent opportunity. Born in Europe, he has also spent his life in
Europe, but none the less the burden of proof would rest with those who
should undertake to show that he is a European. Moreover he has even
on the face of it this great symptom of an American origin, that in the
line of his art he might easily be mistaken for a Frenchman. It sounds
like a paradox, but it is a very simple truth, that when to-day we look
for "American art" we find it mainly in Paris. When we find it out of
Paris, we at least find a great deal of Paris in it. Mr. Sargent came up
to the irresistible city in his twentieth year, from Florence, where in
1856 he had been born of American parents and where his fortunate youth
had been spent. He entered immediately the studio of Caro-lus Duran, and
revealed himself in 1877, at the age of twenty-two, in the portrait of
that master---a fine model in more than one sense of the word. He was
already in possession of a style; and if this style has gained both
in finish and in assurance, it has not otherwise varied. As he saw and
"rendered" ten years ago, so he sees and renders to-day; and I may add
that there is no present symptom of his passing into another manner.

Those who have appreciated his work most up to the present time
articulate no wish for a change, so completely does that work seem to
them, in its kind, the exact translation of his thought, the exact "fit"
of his artistic temperament. It is difficult to imagine a young painter
less in the dark about his own ideal, more lucid and more responsible
from the first about what he desires. In an altogether exceptional
degree does he give us the sense that the intention and the art of
carrying it out are for him one and the same thing. In the brilliant
portrait of Carolus Duran, which he was speedily and strikingly to
surpass, he gav