Born in Florence, Italy (1856-1925) into a privileged American family, and so he lived and traveled all over the world. His formal art instruction started in Rome in 1868, and he also sporadically attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence between 1870 and 1873. In 1874 he was accepted at the Paris studio of the portraitist Emile-Auguste Carolus-Duran, and the next fall entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to study drawing. He began to exhibit at the Salon in 1877. Over the next few years, several experiences had a significant impact on Sargent’s artistic development. First, during a trip to Spain in 1879 he studied and copied paintings by Velázquez at the Prado, then in 1880 he visited Belgium and Holland, where he copied works by Frans Hals, and in 1881 he met James McNeill Whistler in Venice. In a time when the art world focused on Impressionism and Fauvism and Cubanism practiced his own form of Realism, in which he made brilliant references to the masters such as Velázquez, Frans Hals, and many more.
During the 1870s and 1880s, Sargent’s remarkable skills as a portraitist upon which his reputation rested, painted genre scenes, based in part on his travels to Spain and Venice. Rather confusingly, genre works may also be used as an umbrella term for painting in various specialized categories one such being still-life’s.
Sargent’s daring portrait of Madame Gautreau at the Salon of 1884, caused a scandal and precipitated his departure to London the following year.
Sargent was extremely private regarding his personal life, although the painter Jacques-Emile Blanche who was one 
of his early sitters, said after his death, “that Sargent’s sex life was notorious in Paris, and in Venice it was positively scandalous. He was a frenzied bugger.” The truth of this may never be established. Some scholars have suggested that Sargent was homosexual. He had personal associations with Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou. His male nudes reveal complex and well-considered artistic sensibilities about the male physique and male sensuality; this can be particularly observed in his portrait of Thomas E. McKeller, and also in Tommies Bathing, nude sketches, and his portraits of young men, like Bartholomy Maganosco and Head of Olimpio Fusco. However, there were many friendships with women, as well, and a similar suppressed sensualism seen in his female portraits and figure studies, exemplified most notably in the Egyptian Girl, 1891.
In England, Sargent’s style of working was seen as very French. But in 1885 he joined Francis David Millet in the Worcestershire village of Broadway, where he began his masterpiece of English impressionism, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. By 1886, he had made London his permanent home. A year later, Sargent visited and worked with Monet at Giverny, and made his first professional trip to America, where the demand for his art brought him considerable fame and money. In 1897 he was elected an academician at the National Academy of Design, New York, and the Royal Academy of Art, London, and he was made a member of the Legion of Honor in France.
By the turn of the century Sargent was recognized as the most acclaimed international society portraitist of the Edwardian era, and his clientele included the most affluent, aristocratic, and fashionable people of his time. Sargent chafed in later life at the limitations of portraiture, and around the turn of the century he worked increasingly at other subjects and in other mediums, particularly watercolor, in which he was extraordinarily gifted.
During Sargent’s long career, he painted more than 2,000 watercolors, roving from the English countryside to Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida, and each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure. Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.
His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, “Everything is given with the intensity of a dream.” In the Middle East and North Africa, Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness. He also painted extensively family, friends, gardens, and fountains. In watercolors, he playfully portrayed his friends and family dressed in Orientalist costume, relaxing in brightly lit landscapes that allowed for a more vivid palette and experimental handling. To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held.
Though not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America’s greatest water colorist, scholars have revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.
Sargent was commissioned to paint the portraits of the world’s most acclaimed people, namely Theodore Roosevelt, Madame Pierre Gautreau, Dr Pozzi at home, John D Rockefeller, Mrs. Henry White, Isabella Steward Gardner, three portraits of Robert Louis Stevenson, and Woodrow Wilson to name a few.
Although an expatriate who lived in London, Sargent was committed to America’s cultural development and executed important mural decorations for the Boston Public Library (1890 – 1919), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1916 – 1925), and Harvard University’s Widener Library (1921 – 1922). He died in London in 1925.
Be sure to visit our Art Studio for prints from the masters and more.
Happy Shopping
however, we are unable to communicate what it is we want in a way that others are able to understand. When you are shopping for items in your home, this kind of shopping can be extremely frustrating and expensive. If you don’t know what you are looking for, you wander aimlessly searching for things. Sometimes you see something and it may not be the right selection, but you purchase it anyway because you are just exhausted and need to get something. Once you get it home, you find it doesn’t work or you just don’t like it and have to return it. What a pain that is!!! So, how do we determine what we like and dislike, what we want, what we may need and what we really desire?
This step is controversial because many people do not want to limit their aesthetic preferences to an established style. However, even nonconformists may find decor nirvana in the styles known as eclectic, bohemian vintage, bohemian modern and international. Era-specific decor preferences, such as Victorian or retro 1950s, make for easy labeling. Some styles seem more elusive, so look to details such as hardware, finishes, paint combinations, textiles and accessories. The point is to find what pleases you and fits your need.
Indoor water fountains provide several benefits for anyone both physically and mentally. Setting up one in a home or yard may allow for a tranquil and quiet haven to unwind, and can as well play a direct affect on a person’s health. Health benefits of water fountains are many – by lowering blood pressure, to cutting down stress, to ease and calm, to mood heightening benefits and others. Keeping soothing sounds about you can be an extremely significant benefit for a person’s mental health so that they may live life to it’s fullest potenial. A water fountain may help add an element to a living area which could help someone to continue feeling youthful and fit, coupled with a program of good diet and steady exercise.
your beautiful new fountain will gently carry away the stress of your day allowing you to slip into a deep restful sleep while the natural white noise effect created by the flowing water masks out the annoying background noises that would otherwise disturb your much needed slumber.
A popular style for indoor water fountains are wall mounted models which are available in a large range of decorating styles. Everything from European classic, traditional, contemporary casual, country rustic to ultra modern minimalist designs. As stated by their name, such fountains can be hung upon a wall and powered as other fountains are. A good feature of wall mounted systems is that these consume little space while at the same time, add a dramatic decorating statement without adding a larger piece of furniture which takes up floor area. All the same, a wall fountain can not be relocated as easily as a different style of fountain so choose placement with care. They look outstanding in a formal front entry foyer or hung on a wall in a good sized living room. However they will make more noise than their smaller counterpart, the table top. Take this into consideration before hanging a wall fountain over a couch where quiet conversation may be desired.
