Script Excerpt from the 2018 Pageant of the Masters, “Under the Sun,” written by Dan Duling
An American born in Italy and educated in France, John Singer Sargent was acclaimed as the greatest portrait painter of his generation. But, having to please his patrons frequently caused him to lament: “Every time I paint a portrait… I lose a friend.”
Venice – the city of canals his friend Henry James called “the enchantress”—became Sargent’s “fountain of youth.” During his frequent visits over three decades, the artist luxuriated in the liberation to be found in his impromptu sketches.
In Venice, Sargent’s artistic oasis, the only patron he had to please was himself. Wandering through the city, he discovered subjects wherever he turned. His quiet pleasure is evident in a 1910 watercolor in which he eavesdrops on two elegant friends idling near a “Garden Wall.”