Nude Study of Thomas E. Mckeller by John Singer Sargent - Essay Example

? Nude Study of Thomas E. Mckeller" by John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent was born in January 12, 1856 and was the most successful painter of his era. Sargent was born to American parents in Florence, Italy. Her mother was an amateur artist while his father practiced illustration of medicines. It was through her mother’s encouragements and support drawing excursions and sketchbooks that perfected him. He worked carefully at an early age on his drawings and copied ship images from the illustrated London news. At thirteen, a German landscape painter taught him the use of watercolor. From that time, he grew up to be an accomplished in music, art, and literature. By seventeen, he was well accustomed to expansive masters of painting. He dealt majorly on portrait paintings, but he was also skilled in painting landscape and the use of watercolor (Joselit 65). He also went to study in Germany and Italy and later in Paris under Auguste Emile. Sargent also studied with Emile, whose influence changed his artistic life from 1874 to 1878. In 1879, his effort in painting the portrait of his teacher, Emile was met with approval by the public, and this gave him the future direction. He created more than two thousand watercolors, nine hundred oil paintings and countless charcoal drawings and sketches. In 1877, Sargent had a successful exhibition at the Paris salon. His travels to Holland and Spain to study fans Hals and Velazquez, visits to North Africa and Brittany inspired him in paintings. After the controversy of “Madame X,” painting Sargent moved to London where he had several commissions. In 1880, he tried to make up a client site in London and so experimented with landscaping and impressionism (Joselit 77). He incorporated the styles and elements of Monet and Manet in his work. By eighteen nineties, Sargent was the preferred portraitist of representation elites. As he entered sixties, he moved to landscaping turning away from trendy portraiture. Sargent never married and died in 1925. Exhibitions in recognition of his life were mounted the same year in London, Boston, and New York. The painting Thomas E. McKeller was an African American young muscular man when the image was done. He was a bellhop and Sargent considered his facial and muscular physique unique to pose for an oil painting. The acceptance of McKellar led to production of Thomas E. McKellar Nude Study. The painting exhibits Thomas kneeling on a cushion with his arms behind the body. The posture shows well-elaborated torso accompanied with a good amount of prominence and tension. Thomas head in the portrait has been tilted to the side and upward gazing maybe to the heavens. The success of Sargent portrait painting of the McKellar nude study depended on skilled use of visual elements and the mastery of them. In analyzing this portrait, he emphasized the physical element from the view of the portrait size and shape. The original size of the portrait is 125.73 x 84.45 cm (49 1/2 x 33 one/4 inch.) On the canvas. Considering the shape of the portrait, he painted it on distinct rectangular frame. He designed the portrait with an impressionable view of a three dimensional shape. Sargent was able to make this portrait descriptive object in that it physical characteristics are highly explicit with good visual capability. The physical depth of the “Nude study of McKellar” explores the hidden aesthetic means and value. He portrays the object clearly and openly where the physical analyses do not compromise the audience views and thoughts. The use of lines as a main mean of painting style is well elaborated in this portrait. He makes good use of capricious lines on Thomas portrait hence his emotional intimacy can be deciphered in this work. The outer vertical lines of the frame give the portrait some calmness, nobleness, and sense of eternality. The horizontal use of line in the cushion part gives the painting indispensable visual element of calm and peace. There is also cross lines and irregular lines behind the body of Thomas showing a theme of indecision accompanied with solemn background. He made use of the three tones of Clair obscure. The white, gray, and black give the portrait its size and shape. Drawing expression as a basic means of explaining paintings is well catered for by the use of these tones. He applied the tones to make the background texture vivid and create the visual scene where the painting was done. Sargent interweaves the black and gray colors making Thomas portrait straightforward and calm making him subjective to the feelings of the world. The element of texture is vital in this portrait because of the realism need of the object in it, the person. He ensured that the portrait has the touch desire making it three dimensional and real. The texture application in his work made the portrait has a strong vision simulation arousing human impulse and excitement. Texture's concept in use by Sargent vividly depicts the painting contrast enriching and enhancing the image spirit and visual language. The contrast and textures create the space in the portrait, which is a two-dimensional. He used the visual depth making it almost real by creation of light, shades, lines, and color. The background irregular lines and the interwoven black and white give an illusion of real space, maybe heaven. In this portrait, the color and the light are inseparable. The shades of light are created and reflected by color lightness. It is the color in the torso of Thomas that makes it a real human portrait and thus the viewer’s vision of life. Under the technique, Sargent applies the use of brushstrokes in achieving what he desired in the portrait. Most of the portraits parts exhibit the use of oil and brush creating the texture and the illusion of depth and space. His brush application seems highly individual, and the motion of the brush created motion and stressed his personal style of pressure application on the painting (Noel & Jean 69). The brush strokes on Thomas torso is almost invisible compared to the background, hence the body is straightforward and smooth. There is an effect of clouds in the background, and this is a result of brush strokes hence the addition of details in the portrait. To supplement brush strokes there is the line to define the edge of the form and the shape of the object, the person. He used the line to assist the strokes in the creation of the illusion of volume and mass. The lines in these portraits define the edge of the body, the cushions, and the circular background making the portrait spontaneous and controlled. He also made use of defined dark lines on the torso enable the separation of the body color and the backspace posed by the sitter. The perspective created by the use of lines and definitions of edges create a well-defined space. He ensured that the “Nude study of McKellar” has a clear division of space. The main body subject is elaborated in relation to the background, foreground, and the middle ground making the portrait symmetrical across the center. The main subject is placed in the center of the background making it well related to the different parts of the body. The use of the space gives the painting a perspective of three dimension hence human body becoming realistic in the sense. Symbolism of the portrait leads us to the time and culture when he was doing this painting. The nude portrait of Thomas might not have any cultural or religious symbolism, but it may explain the notion of Sargent and his life controversies (Noel & Jean 254). Considering the mysteries that surrounded sexual orientations of Sargent the symbolism of the portrait may be concluded from this. The erotic subtext can be inferred in the McKellar study hence the view of most art history scholars and biographers that the Sergeant was gay. The combination of opinions from this portrait either way repressed the gay issue, hence the assumption of bisexuality. Although he was regarded asexual, he never had a romantic relationship with both sexes; hence he never married. The symbolism of the painting is hard to infer. Sargent captured Thomas from a purely aesthetic point other than the earlier assumed sexual one. The earthy Constance and soulful magnificent form of Thomas suppress the norm underlying sexual orientation of Sargent. To conclude the symbolism part of this painting, there is a presumption that, color has varying means in different contexts and places. This painting is a portrait type. Sargent in ensuring it a balanced portrait he shows much of the entire body. Thomas body figure is entirely full considering human physique. The portrait maximizes the available space in the frame giving only room for the background to add to its effects. As a portrait style, the sitter is exhibited in personal perspective in that Thomas being nude does not show any external linkages or motives. The painting might only explain the individual superiority in acceptance to pose for this work. Though done by one of his allies, this portrait was never exhibited until the death of the artist, Sargent. It has some sense of social life between the artist and the sitter this accompanied by a psychological condition of both of them (Lehmann 45). The social situation that the image presented is that of an independent inner life because Thomas motives and the use of the portrait are unknown. The figure’s personality in the image is relaxed and wane from the posture of the body and head. Thomas head is tilted sideways gazing up with his facial expression calm and inviting. In this portrait, the impact of background is questioning due to the fact that it is not elaborate. The surroundings suggest a sense of timelessness and heavens. The picture sitter’s posture is largely the propaganda of the painter’s response to the sitter. In analyzing the style of this image, the profile suggests emphasis on decoration without movements more, so Thomas posing explains his dynamic personality and non involvement in the social world. The in-depth consideration of Sargent work can only be associated with those of the master style. In doing this portrait, he painted halftones backward to the dark background and forward to the human torso against somber tones on the canvas (Ormond 98). This makes the image acquire a unique human posture with diamante luminescence shown in the eyes and face. Thomas nude painting exhibits brilliant metaphysical brightness that divides the background and the main body vesting the torso with radiance touched with grace. The canvas he used executes shadow to light making the light used define individual human form against the cloudy surrounding in the painting. Sargent used the elusive moment when he was drawing this portrait to show the boundary between matter and the arts, and perhaps between mind and body. He had the prerogative power in turning paint into life as expressed well in the portrait of Thomas. He tried the art of Impressionalism, but he had no internal understanding in what revolution in vision and touch Impressionalism. The work of Sargent as far it was considered one of the unique paints ever done during the era it also had criticism. Fairbrothers noticed the “guilt by association” hereby claiming that the nude portrait was a centrist art practice with moderate embody. He was never specified on the motive, and the symbolism that could be associated with the Thomas nude study thus was guilty of middlebrow pastiche. This is also shown by the writings that Sargent left. There was a sense of emotional attachment to the work he was to do hence leading to shortcomings and controversy on whom he admired or knew. The critics also cited the artistic creation of this portrait as implicit in strictures. Sargent made the viewers see Thomas as rational, mechanical, and bloodless as he was posing for the portrait. There was no abstraction associated with oil paintings, like the use of bravura techniques of moderate and centrist art practices (Ormond 122). The portrait required adequate understanding of the viewer’s artistic imagination to analyze the image. This portrait according to Fairbrother was done with wildness, passion, and wonders; he attempted to say the unsayable [sic]. Sargent, t in the Thomas portrait tried to leap above his own state of personal awareness, thus, he could exhibit the portrait until after his death. In this work, he subscribed to a specified philosophy of planned action that was deliberate, conscious, and daring. The critics further analyze the portrait of Thomas as revealing hidden strategies that had been cut and logical dried in the psychological context of the painter. Conclusion In conclusion, Sargent was inspiring, confusing, mysterious, uncertain, and daring. The argument was derived from the tone of the image that required rigorous research to infer what their thoughts were up to at that historical context and place. He drew this portrait with personal self-advancement expressing conventional aspects that he favored in his life as an artist, and a realist painter (Lehmann 106). The final sentiments that could be deciphered from the “Nude study of Mckeller” are that Sargent was adept to the social formalities of the upper class and the wealthy. The analysis of this portrait should be looked from a different perspective and not from the realist point of view. It should be analyzed based on the effects, which were disruptive in various ways and its meanings and social origins. There is ideological irrelevance and psychological relevance in this portrait because it is associated with social satire. Work Cited Joselit, J. W. Restoring the American painters: The Forward. Elaine: Abbeville Press, 1997. Print Lehmann, Lucie. Public Art, Private Prejudice. New York: Mcgrawl United, 2005. Print Noel, Niol & Jean Hournon. The Nude Portrait in Paris. Paris:  Les Presses Franciliennes, 2006. Print Ormond, Richard. “Sargent's Art" in John Singer Sargent. London: Tate Gallery, 1998. Print Read More