Sargent was characteristically quite reticent because of this, some of his friends suggested that he was unperturbed by the war. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1915 (15.142.7) Watercolor and graphite on white wove paper, 21 x 15 3/4 in. Right: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, George A. Left: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Sargent was in Pustertal, near the Italian border, in late October when he received news of Robert's death. His letters to Rose-Marie and other family members reveal his concern and anxiety, especially for Rose-Marie's husband. Without a passport, he was forced to remain there until November, when he obtained the necessary documents. Sargent likely associated the wounded soldiers in Gassed with her role in the war effort.įour years earlier, when England and France declared war on Austria on August 4, 1914, Sargent was on one of his customary summer painting holidays in the Austrian Tyrol. Only 24 years old at the time of her death, Rose-Marie had worked as a nurse treating blinded soldiers after her husband, Robert, died fighting for France in October 1914. Months earlier, his beloved niece (and frequent model) Rose-Marie Ormond had been killed in the bombing of the church of Saint-Gervais in Paris on Good Friday. Sargent's very public response to the war incorporated associations of his personal grief and loss. Along the side of the road, hundreds of injured soldiers convey the devastating human toll and horrific scale of the war. Gassed (above)-an epic, frieze-like composition depicting soldiers blinded by mustard gas being led to treatment-was based on a scene that he had witnessed at Le-Bac-du Sud on the Arras-Doullens Road in August 1918. He ultimately abandoned his assigned theme, choosing instead to depict the impact of modern chemical warfare. Having accepted a commission to commemorate the joint efforts of American and British troops for a proposed Hall of Remembrance, Sargent spent four months at the front, sketching and painting in watercolor as he grappled with how to convey the magnitude and loss of the devastating war in a monumental composition. At the time, he was one of the most esteemed painters of his day, widely recognized in the United States and Europe for his portraits and for his mural work at the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Yet, in summer 1918, the 62-year-old painter traveled to France and Belgium as an official war artist for Britain. Image © IWMīest known for his bravura society portraits and dazzling, sun-filled watercolors, the cosmopolitan American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) might seem an unlikely candidate to document the Great War. Imperial War Museum, London (Art.IWM ART 1460). John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925).
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