I have been sorting through my paper clutter, and found this old essay, which is a a painting by Sargent. I also found, online, this nifty site for converting scanned writing into editable text,
https://www.prepostseo.com/image-to-text
so have slightly edited it to reproduce here:
GORDON NAPIER
Art 105. VISUAL CULTURE
CRITIQUE- THE SULPHUR MATCH
(John Singer Sargent).
‘The Sulphur Match’, by John Singer Sargent, is executed in oil, on canvas, and measures 58.4 cm by 41.3 cm. The
painting was completed in 1882, in Venice, six years before the Jack the Ripper
murders. I mention the letter, because the scene is somehow reminiscent of the
milieu created around the Whitehall fiend. Quite clearly, there can be no
connection, however, the atmosphere of threat and the degenerate undertone is
striking. (I do not mean to imply that Sargent is a Ripper
suspect, even if he was in London at the time, but I digress).
The paint appears to have been briskly applied, to achieve a fairly quick
impression of the scene, rather than a photographic representation. The
painting features an olive skinned, dark hared, youngish woman in a white
dress. About her shoulders is a red shawl, and she is leaning back on the hind
two legs of a wooden chair, against a smoke-grey wall. Her hair is tied up, but
not neatly, and the loose strands of her hair suggest informality. She appears
to be in conversation with a dark cloaked man, in who lurks in a corner filled
with shadows. He is using the eponymous 'Sulphur Match' to light his cheroot
cigar.
Sargent caught the tail end of
Impressionism, being somewhat younger than Manet, with whom he painted. The influences of this style are noticeable in
‘The Sulphur Match’, particularly around the woman's hastily rendered stockings
and shoes. There appears to be a discarded bottle of chianti in the bottom corner, to her left, and shards of broken glass on
the floor nearby. Alternatively, these could be pieces of fruit peel. Both
possibilities would have symbolic meaning- glass for the extreme abandonment of
drunkenness. Fruit, on the other hand, also has symbolic meaning, being used as
a reference to passion.
The title presents a possible intended double meaning. ‘The Sulphur Match’ on
the surface of it, refers to the match with which the man lights his cheroot.
Sulphur, however, relates also to Hell, and ‘Match’ could mean the union
between the odd couple. I.e. a sinful union that can only lead
to mutual damnation. The milieu looks forward to what would become the dark and
sinister beast of Fin-de-seicle art, crackling as it was with a
slightly subversive sexual undertone.
The style is by no means classical, having a somewhat sketchy quality. However,
it does not demonstrate the Manet- like broken
application of paint or high key of colour, that featured
in Sargent's more typically impressionistic
works.
Although quite obviously taken from observation, (as can be seen taken for a
near certainty, basing this deduction on impressionistic, sketchy nature, the
unusual lighting, and the fact that the painting is alive with the atmosphere
of the moment) there is also symbolism present. For example, the colours
probably have meanings. The white of the woman's dress refers to purity, but it
is not a very pure white. The red of her shawl suggests prostitution, for the
colour has long been identified with the oldest trade, by the church, amongst
others. Whereas in religious art, the Blessed Virgin is traditionally depicted
in White and blue, Mary Magdalene, according to lore a reformed harlot, was
always shown clad in red. As was the whore was Babylon. In Art, Red is
identified with passion and seduction, relating to blood and wine. Rembrandt
painted his Delilah in red also. The blackness of the man's apparel, and the
shadows he broods in, suggest the evil realm into which his heady companion is
in the process of being lured. Seemingly, she is drunk, and being used in some
ungracious way. She is either a harlot being solicited, or a naive girl being
seduced by the promises of a pimp. The feel of persuasion or seduction into
danger is definitely present.
This is a departure from the sort of painting other Artist were inspired to create whilst in Venice. Sargent's predecessors produced copious panoramas of St Marks Square, the
Bridge of Sighs, and the Grand Canal. It was the cityscape that invariably
inspired the others. Although he felt moved to do a number of fine
architectural studies, mostly in water-colour, Sargent seems to have been more interested in the life of the city, young
people, (his own generation) and their (often sordid) encounters in the
shadows.
The painted woman could be simply a loose woman being seduced, or a whore being
solicited. The man could be either a pimp, or a client. Having said that they
could be a perfectly decent married couple, there is no completely damning
evidence, only circumstantial devices which seem to be symbolic. The location
could be a cafe bar, or a brothel, or in a dusky courtyard.
The painting featured in a substantial and impressive exhibition of the
artist's work, held at the Tate in 1998/9. It was one of many loaned from other
galleries, and private collections. This particular one
being the property of Mr and Mrs Hugh Half Jr. It could there be contrasted with
the other paintings produced by the prolific artist. The range of different
types of paintings he did was wide, and eclectic in terms of style, size and
content. They ranged in style from classical to impressionistic. They ranged in
theme from society portraits, to paintings of children, to the monumental war
commemoration 'Gassed,' a famous huge and awesome piece, showing a line of
mustard-gas-blinded soldiers, leading each other, whilst twisted dead and
wounded bodies writhe like the damned in the foreground. There were also
examples of religious work, and of symbolist themes such as Egyptian deities,
and the Mesopotamian goddesses (related to Sargent’s masterwork, the murals on the subject of ‘The Triumph of Religion’
at the Boston Public Library). Influences ranged from the Renaissance, to the
Impressionists, to Fin-de-siecle symbolism.
Subtlety, quality and tastefulness are generally consistent throughout,
however, though some were thought daring at the time.
Like the others, ‘The Sulphur Match’ painting shows his gift for capturing
naturalistic poses. It lacks the striking elegance of some larger paintings;- including portraits like the sumptuous and elegant 'Madame X' (a
portrait of Madame Gautreau), or the handsome, Saturnine 'Dr Pozzi at home.' Placed together, the couple ooze power, and as much dark grandeur as Lucifer and his chosen consort. Both paintings are
tall and perpendicular, and I found
them the most captivating.
Sargent was born in Italy, to American
parents. He studied in Paris, exhibiting his portraits in the Salon. These
demonstrated his admiration for old masters such as Valazquez and Frans Hals, who's work he studied in Madrid and Haarlem.
By the early 1880s, he had come close in style, to his associate, the
impressionist Edouard Manet. His portraits, meanwhile, grew ever more daring. 'Madame X' caused a scandal
contributing to Sargent's reasons for moving to London,
when he was thirty. Edwardian society flocked to his studio in Tite Street, Chelsea, to sit for their portraits, for which his
reputation was unrivalled. Sargent had yet to win
renown as a portrait painter on both sides of the Atlantic, by the time he
painted ‘The Sulphur Match’. It was finished four years prior to his move to
London.
His society portraits have been called 'at once flattering, penetrating and
brilliantly executed'. I see no reason why an artist should not flatter his
sitters. We have photographers to record reality. It is these surviving
photographs which serve to disillusion the viewer of the women; effulgent and
beautiful in paint, somewhat duller and plainer in snapshot. Artists should
feel no compulsion to inhabit the mundane and imperfect real world. Sargent's paintings conveyed the grandeur his sitters aspired to in a way
that a photographer might find it difficult to emulate. These paintings tell
more about humanity than many photographs.
However, as The Sulphur Match' is no commissioned portrait, there is little
evidence that he flattered the people in it. He may simply have exaggerated the
atmosphere the personalities created. It captures another facet of human
nature, albeit one altogether less virtuous. It falls into the category of
paintings featuring natives of rustic or exotic places, that Sargent liked. His earlier Capri
paintings touched on similar themes, and also demonstrate his taste for unusual
viewpoints and poses. His venetian paintings have been called a high
point of his early career. The exotic location of Venice was one of many Sargent visited. Egypt, Spain, and the Mediterranean islands also
enchanted him.
Returning to the composition of 'The Sulphur Match', it is noticeable that the
tone of the grey background is lighter behind the woman, and blends ever darker
as it nears the man. Sargent had a gift at rendering tones of
flesh and folds in material, so as they read as the genuine article, with great
economy of brush strokes. Detail is lost, rather than gained, the nearer the
viewer moves towards the painting. Such is observable in the fall of this
woman's rippling dress from her knees, the shape of which forms the centre
piece. It is also noticeable in the depth of the darkness behind her ankles.
The very fact that she shows her ankles is a very symbolic sign of how far her
morals and self control have lapsed. That she swings back, and that her balance
is precarious, may also be symbolic. It not only gives the piece tension in its
potential movement- it represents the fact that she could, morally and
spiritually- swing either way, back into the light, or farther, and
irretrievably into the stygian darkness. The fact that her face falls into
shadow suggests the latter as the most likely outcome. There is a balance, but
it is tense and volatile, a balance on a knife edge, perhaps. The actual
morality is ambiguous, perhaps ambivalent. The artist did not seem to care
about whether the girl succumbed to the darkness, or whether she was saved. He
simply presented her situation with professional detachment. This is by no
means a typical treatment of his subjects, by Sargent.
The heads of the two are balanced, position wise, on a level with one another,
and equidistant from the centre. In other ways, the two figures are poles
apart. The man is darkness, she is light. He broods like a heavy rain cloud,
she drifts light and airy (if indelicately) in her apparent drunkenness. These
forces are totally at odds, but balance each other because they are of equal
strength and energy.
Interpretation wise- the painting is both a recording of a scene, and, from a
deeper point of view, the atmosphere associated with that scene. It can also be
read, I believe, as an allegory of temptation into evil. I can appreciate it's merits as a purveyor of an impression. I also quite like it,
though not as much as some of his other paintings. My favourite is the portrait
of Dr Pozzi, followed by 'Madame X', and
‘Carnation, Lilly, Lilly Rose’, (which is of two little girls holding truly
fluorescent lanterns). All for different reasons.
However, there is little of the light spirited, yet intense innocence of the
latter painting in 'The Sulphur Match'. It's whole execution, it's whole en-semble, is dark and
corrupted. It also lacks the theatrical stateliness of 'Madame X', or the
vibrant cultivated glory of 'Dr Pozzi At Home'. It
shares with them, however, the fact that it's aesthetic strength lies largely in the simplicity of the
composition and the ingenuity of the forms.
Sargent visited America in 1887-8 and
1889-90, already famous, he produced more fine portraits, including Henry
James's and John D Rockerfeller's.
His latter years he did more water
colours, of (often exotic) landscapes. He also painted several
renaissance style murals, some symbolist themes, and some religious works,
which are surprisingly merit-worthy, if not always terribly original, harping
back as they did to bygone ages. However, his final glory, the poignant First
World War memento 'Gassed', has become one of the enduring archetypal images of
the tragic twentieth century. Sargent died in 1925,
aged sixty-nine.
Sources: Tate Gallery
Exhibition Guide Sargent at the
Tate
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