21). Mr. Sargent is a portrait-painter by vocation, and the
public knows him best as a penetrating and sometimes cruel reader of
human character. He is a mural painter by avocation and capable, on
occasion, of a monumental formality. In this picture, as in the
wonderful collection of watercolors in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts
and Sciences, one fancies one sees the essential John Sargent, working
for himself alone without regard to external demands, and doing what he
really cares most to do. In such work he is a modern of the moderns
and, in the broadest sense of the word, a thorough Impressionist. Not
that he shows himself a disciple of Monet or occupies himself with the
broken touch or the division of tones--his method is as direct as that
of Sorolla and his impressionism is of the same kind--a bending of all
his energies to the vivid realization of the effect of the scene
rendered as one might perceive it in the first flash of vision if one
came upon it unexpectedly. This picture is better than Sorolla--it is
better than almost any one. It is perhaps the most astonishing
realization of the modern ideal, the most accomplished transcript of the
actual appearance of nature, that has yet been produced. It is because
of its great merit, because of its extraordinary success in what it
attempts, that it leads one to the serious consideration of the nature
of the attempt and of the gain and loss involved in the choice that
modern art has made.
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