Strapless (20 page)

By the second week, the painting had become a symbol of the failure of the entire exhibition. An editorial in
L’Événement
invoked Sargent’s painting in arguing that artists had made a poor showing. The editorial pointed to distinguishing characteristics of Amélie’s portrait, such as her skin color, and termed the painting “hideous” and “nauseating.” Instead of faces, it held, artists like Sargent painted “inside-out rabbit skins, greenish, grayish, ‘corpse-ish,’ moldy. . . . When one stands twenty meters from the painting, it looks like it might be something. . . . They call it ‘impressionism,’ but when one gets closer and gives it three seconds of . . . attention, one realizes that it is only ‘hideousness.’”

These harsh notices had graphic counterparts—venomous cartoons and caricatures of Sargent, Amélie, and the painting.
Le Charivari
ran a caricature that transformed Amélie’s bosom into the oversize heart on a playing card, with her fallen shoulder strap especially visible. The artist extended Amélie’s nose well beyond its real Avegno length, calling attention to her least attractive feature. The caption read: “New model—the ace of hearts for a game of cards.”

The playful and ribald
Vie Parisienne
satirized the painting in everything from mock advertisements to spurious letter campaigns. One article suggested that Amélie’s skin, so white and free of pores, could be used to advertise a blackhead remedy: “Mr. Sargent has offered to let a well known parfumeur use his current painting. The painting will be called: Before and After ‘Anti Bolbos.’” Another item, finding a sexual angle to exploit, consisted of fictitious letters from artists defending their own paintings. In his letter, the purported Sargent wrote: “They insist on pretending that I made ‘la belle Madame G . . .’ less beautiful than nature did . . . that her complexion doesn’t have the sparkling transparency that everyone recognizes. Just wait! My painting [is] a mechanical canvas. At six o’clock, for the lucky few, the chains that hold up the bodice come off and the dress falls to expose the most perfect, the most adorable, the most delicate and the most tender base of linoleum that one can possibly imagine. All inquiries should be addressed to the museum attendant.”

La Vie Parisienne
specialized in sexually suggestive illustrations of women, and its Salon issue invited readers to take a close look at the lovely bodies on display at the exhibition. “Ask for the little Salon souvenir! Little ladies in various states of undress. The illustrated booklet comes with the addresses of the models. To rent a magnifying glass, just ask.” Despite her status as a married woman, Amélie was presented as one of the near-naked models. A caricature showed her with bosom exposed and, of course, her prominently fallen strap. The first caption line below addressed her directly, exclaiming, “Mélie, your dress is falling off!” Her imagined reply was curt: “It’s on purpose. . . . And leave me alone anyway, won’t you?”

Le Gaulois,
somewhat more intellectual in its satire, printed a poem that imagined what Amélie would tell Sargent, if she had the opportunity. The poem was part of an article entitled “Great Beauties of the Past and Their Painters, à Propos of the Beautiful Madame Gautreau,” in which other artists’ models, among them Mona Lisa and Madame Récamier, praised the men who painted them. In the poem, Amélie told Sargent that she was ashamed and upset:

 

Over the summer of 1884, newspaper writers in Paris competed to post the cleverest insult.
Le Petit Journal
cautioned, “It is better to have a good portrait in your bathrobe than a bad sketch in a ball gown.” Perdican decreed that “since Sargent’s portrait we call her only the strange Madame [Gautreau].” In
Le Figaro,
Albert Wolff commented slyly on Amélie’s bosom: “One more struggle and the lady will be free.”

From this tempest of condemnation and ridicule, a few positive voices did speak up. Several critics expressed admiration for what they saw as the painting’s virtues. They looked beyond the debates over Sargent’s ability to capture a likeness, or his talent for composing a pleasing image. Recognizing more than a superficial rendering of a pale woman in a black gown, they extolled Sargent for a complex, ambitious, symbolic psychological portrait. In their eyes,
Madame X
was not merely the portrait of a woman: it was a depiction of an entire society. “A painting such as this one is a document,” a critic for
La Nouvelle Revue
contended. “A century from now, our great-grandnephews won’t be able to imagine a
mondaine
other than this one for the year 1884.” A
mondaine
was a woman of the world, and this critic believed that Sargent had portrayed Amélie as the ultimate symbol of that kind of sophisticate.

André Michel made a similar observation about the iconic quality of the painting in
L’Art.
“The critics of the next generation,” he predicted, “will be freer to comment on this troubling work. They will look here, no doubt, for a ‘document’ of the ‘high life’ of . . . 1884, an image of a woman which an overheated and contrived civilization, with a taste less for fresh, healthy flowerings than for the blossoms of the boudoir, has been pleased to fashion; and if it is true that each generation remakes in its own image the work of nature, then future critics will see here our Parisian cosmopolitanism manifested in ideal form.” Both these critics understood that Sargent’s painting of Amélie was really a portrait—and perhaps an indictment—of Parisian society. Her image, arrogant and narcissistic, expressed the dancing-on-the-volcano attitude that would characterize the Belle Époque.

Sargent’s friend Judith Gautier, who had been writing art reviews for twenty years, praised him as a “master of his art” in her commentary on the Salon in
Le Rappel.
She described
Madame X
as “the precise image of a modern woman scrupulously drawn by a painter,” and commended its “visionary beauty.”

But Gautier and others who applauded Sargent’s controversial work were unquestionably in the minority. Criticized, dismissed, and lampooned in one publication after another, Sargent was trapped at the center of a nasty scandal that showed no signs of abating. In fact, it was bound to get worse, as foreign journalists carried the news of his failure to their homelands. Word would travel from France to England, the United States, and other countries, undermining the reputation he had worked hard to establish.

Sargent faced a more immediate problem as well. Before the Salon, he had quite reasonably anticipated that he would sell the portrait to Amélie and her husband for a handsome fee. But as soon as there was a whiff of public derision, the Gautreaus made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the painting. For the first time in Sargent’s career, his business plan had backfired. Instead of achieving his goal of becoming a premier portraitist, Sargent faced the devastating possibility that he was an overnight failure.

I
f Sargent did not act immediately to salvage his career, his dreams of renown and success in Paris would be finished. Once the Salon ended, he reclaimed
Madame X
and returned it to his studio. Looking as if she had never left, Amélie once again dominated the room. But now Sargent was free to do as he wished with the portrait; he was no longer subject to any outside pressure. Amélie and her family had no control over a portrait they did not own—he could change it for his own reasons. He revived the idea he had been considering when he appealed to Bouguereau to let him retouch the work.

 

With a few scrapes and strokes, Sargent removed all traces of the offending fallen shoulder strap. With equal alacrity, he painted a new strap that sat properly on Amélie’s shoulder. This simple alteration made the bodice of the dress seem secure. It also made her pose less suggestive and her attitude less devil-may-care. It was as if the fallen strap had never existed.

Sargent had no plans to exhibit the painting, even retouched. Locked in his studio, it existed only for him. But every time he looked at it, the portrait must have been a painful reminder of his failure at the Salon. It also provoked unhappy memories of his infatuation with Amélie and the unfortunate consequences of their collaboration. He had to change it—to rewrite history, in a sense—before he could attempt to reclaim his life.

And that was his next step. Sargent wanted to leave Paris to gain some perspective. He was scheduled to paint the daughters of Colonel Vickers in rural England in July, but he did not want to spend any more time in France than necessary. He sent a politely flirtatious letter to Henry James in early June, feeding the older man’s ego and fueling his obvious desire to grow closer to the artist. “It will be pleasant getting to London and especially leaving Paris,” Sargent wrote. “I am dreadfully tired of the people here. . . . I hope you are not going to leave London very soon. I am sure you will be necessary to my happiness there.”

Sargent arrived in London on June 10, and for the next month, James filled his calendar with social activities, trying to persuade him to turn his back on Paris once and for all. In contrast to the gossip-mongers in France, Sargent’s friends in London were very solicitous as far as the Gautreau portrait. Although news of the Salon scandal had crossed the Channel, it was not something that would have concerned the kind of people, such as rebellious artists like Oscar Wilde, whom Sargent sought as his companions.

Potential clients, however, were more sensitive to the criticisms directed at Sargent. He was having difficulty attracting new business, but luckily, Colonel Vickers did not withdraw his commission. He still wanted Sargent to paint his daughters and welcomed him to his Sheffield estate.

Sargent was daring in his approach to the Vickers portrait. He posed the three sisters in a semicircle, two of them together and the third apart, their pale faces thrown into relief against a dark background. The bold grouping had psychological overtones reminiscent of his treatment of the four Boit sisters. Colonel Vickers, more than pleased with the portrait of his daughters, hired Sargent to paint his wife and his two sons. Others in the extended Vickers family followed the colonel’s lead in commissioning portraits, and ultimately Sargent painted thirteen family members.

They may not have been colorful, dramatic, and intoxicating like Amélie Gautreau and Samuel Pozzi, yet the Vickerses were pleasant people with solid financial portfolios. Sargent came to appreciate their company and happily participated in family dances and picnics. He even joined them in a brief seaside vacation in August.