haut-culture: John Singer Sargent. ‘Madame X’ (Mme. Pierre…
John Singer Sargent. ‘Madame X’ (Mme. Pierre Gautreau), 1884, oil on canvas, 234.95 x 109.86 cm. Collection of the Met Museum, NYC.
Unlike traditional portraits, this one was not commissioned by the sitter herself. Rather, it was the request of the artist — he apparently was so taken by Gautreau’s pale skin, parisienne beauty and infamous persona that he just had to paint her. It is reported that Sargent courted Madame with letters and requests until she gave in. In other words, he begged her. It could be claimed that he was obsessed with her skin; it was the locus of her beauty and the seed of the scandal that surrounded this portrait.
Completed over numerous sittings, Sargent reduces Mme. Gautreau to her skin. Influenced by her own cultural milieu, Mme. Gautreau’s soft blue veins and purple arteries peak out beneath the shimmering layer of white lead powder, a common method for cosmetically enhancing the appearance of skin at this time. In the portrait, the body of Madame is twisted, forcing her face into extreme profile in order to place attention on the skin’s appearance rather than facial likeness. Madame Gautreau’s appearance and aristocratic positioning were so well-known that the visitors of the Paris Salon of 1884 were shocked that the artist removed her name from the title in order to preserve her anonymity — she could never have been anonymous due to her social status and appearance. Originally Sargent titled the portrait Madame *** , only later changing it to Madame X. While Sargent reduced Madame to her skin through his painting of her epidermis, he was not successful at hiding her identity.
This painting challenges the belief that the face is locus where identity is communicated in traditions of portraiture. In this case, it is the skin that communicates the essence of a person.
For an interesting analysis of the appearance of skin in this portrait, please see: Susan Sidlauskas. “Painting Skin: John Singer Sargent’s ‘Madame X’”American Art 15 (3) (Autumn 2001): 8-33.
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48861341875.
