By Michael Gormley
John Singer Sargent, "Lady Agnew of Lochnaw," 1892, oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 39 1/2 in.
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Photo courtesy of the Frick Collection
I would be hard pressed to name my favorite painting, but if I had to pinpoint one work to represent the ideals of portraiture, and the flights of expression that genre can attain, I would undoubtedly choose Lady Agnew of Lochnaw by John Singer Sargent. No surprise here, when the work was exhibited in 1898 at the Royal Academy The Times wrote, “A masterpiece... not only a triumph of technique but the finest example of portraiture in the literal sense of the word, that has been seen here in a long while.”
We will have the opportunity to revisit that very high opinion come November when Lady Agnew arrives at New York City’s Frick Museum, part of a traveling exhibition of 45 works on loan from the Scottish National Gallery. The show’s New York debut will feature ten paintings, curated with a view to complimenting the Frick’s permanent collection. Among the works shown will be Botticelli’s The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child (ca. 1485), which has never been on public view in the United States, and paintings by Constable, El Greco, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Velázquez, and Watteau. The Frick collection is a treasure unto itself and includes equally splendid masterworks by Bronzino, Fragonard, Holbein, Titian, van Dyck, and Whistler—to name but a few. All in all Lady Agnew will be in good company--as is fitting given that Sargent’s portrait sealed her bid for entrée to high society.
Lady Agnew did the same for Sargent; it made him a star and the darling of the British and American upper classes. Commissions poured in—a triumph in stark contrast to the scandal following the unveiling in Paris of his Madame X portrait eight years previous. Yet both works were aimed at the same end—that is, both were meant to secure Sargent’s status as society’s leading portraitist by hitching his star to that of a promising socialite equally intent on scaling the social ladder. Securing such tenuous perches will always be risky business, and on both sides of the Atlantic there was a certain ruthlessness guarding the high gates. One perceived slight or social faux pas, real or imagined, and it all could go terribly wrong--as it did with Madame X.
We all have our pet theory as to what went wrong with Madame X. My guess is that Sargent painted a bit too truthfully--and in so doing (either naively or arrogantly) came in conflict with the mores and sensibilities of his day. At the time everyone knew that men lusted after the Mme. Gautreau, the young socialite that sat for the portrait. Equally clear to all was that she was using her beauty and charms (and the money of her far senior, cuckolded husband) to advance her standing in society. However, it is quite another thing to communicate that narrative in a large scale work created as a show piece to inspire patronage. It was bound to cause a stir—and it did—but not the kind of critical acclaim that Sargent and Gautreau were banking on. Flaunting spectacle was not loved then as it is today. Madame X was dismissed as offensive by Parisian society, and having little prospects for continued patronage in Paris, Sargent decamped to London.
Enter Andrew Noel Agnew, a barrister who had inherited the baronetcy and estates of Lochnaw in Galloway, with a commission to paint Gertrude Vernon, his young wife. Second chance, near identical circumstances -- young socialite and emerging artist hook up hoping to hit the big time. Yet everything is different. And what is different has nothing to do with Sargent’s native talent; it has been clear for some time that Sargent’s paint handling is genius. What contemporary is near his equal with drawing and gesture? I venture that what has changed is Sargent’s vision of women—and the imagery he invents to communicate a shift in how women perceive themselves and their society. Lady Agnew strikes a full frontal pose and courageously holds the viewer’s discriminating gaze—by inference a male gaze. Simultaneously she appears to have a case of opening night jitters and uses the chair arm to steady herself. With that gesture, Sargent deftly captures the tension between his subject’s languid self-assurance and defensive watchfulness—and by extension, illustrates emerging conflicts and impulses, exhibited by turns, first willfulness, then vulnerability--the emotive discharge produced by shifting roles in polite society.
With Lady Agnew, Sargent created both a new Sargent and a new woman. Lady Agnew’s Sargent is a sensitive painter of women. The archetypal shift is striking when compared to the female type offered by Madame X. One adores Gertrude Vernon. One lusts after Mme. Gautreau—big difference. With Mme. Gautreau, Sargent’s bravura brushwork acts to inflate his subject’s flamboyance--in fact the painting is so clear in its outré pronouncement that it incriminates both sitter and painter for the same sin—hubris. The latter critique lets Sargent off the hook rather gently. Born a swell, Sargent may also have been engaging in some salon sparring himself and consciously or unconsciously commenting upon Mme. Gautreau’s “professional beauty” –and critiquing a bit too ruthlessly.
One more thing; Lady Agnew is depicted as an independent and free agent—acting apart from, rather than as a reflection of, the male gaze. This was big news in 1892—and our culture is still working through the shifts in gender roles implied by this painting. By way of contrast, Madame X, scandal aside, epitomizes (if not satirizes) female subject imagery—that is the female subject as object of the male gaze. Mme. Gautreau exists because the male gaze makes her visible. She looks away from the viewer—self assured that her power, and indeed her very existence, lie in the certitude that she is being looked upon and desired. Lady Agnew, on the other hand, returns the viewer’s gaze, albeit with a certain vulnerability. She knows she is wanted, but she wants back. Perhaps this shifting narrative was too far advanced back then for anyone to pick up on; in hindsight Lady Agnew is by far the more scandalous work in its aim to challenge extant social mores. In comparison, Madame X is simply unveiled bourgeoisie titillation and I guess also ahead of its time.
Michael Gormley is a painter, writer, curator and regular contributor to the Portraits, Inc. blog. Gormley is the former editor of American Artist magazine and most recently created the fine art catalog for Craftsy--an online education platform.
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