Academics, artists and curators delve into the background behind Sargent’s glossy society portraits in this polished documentary
With impeccable timing, as the show it explores is still running at London’s Tate Britain, here is an appreciation/profile of the American painter most famous for his brilliantly rendered portraits of the late Victorian and Edwardian upper crust and nouveau riche. The art world being what it is, the film takes its cue as much from the similarly themed Sargent exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (with whom the Tate has co-produced the show); an institution that has its own significant claim to Sargent via the spectacular murals commissioned for the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts itself.
Such is Sargent’s commitment to reproducing the shimmering wonder of the fabrics in which his subjects are often draped, it’s fair to say that “fashion” might be a valid, if clickbaity, way in. It has not proved universally popular, however, with the Guardian’s Jonathan Jones describing the Tate exhibition as “horrible … [with an] obsessive, myopic argument”.
