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and the serpent, the Pharaoh, and the group of the Jews. In his portrait work Mr. Sargent has often given evidence of the possession of the most sensitive appreciation of form and color, but he has seldom, if ever, given better proof of it than in the conception and execution of this figure of Astarte. As long ago as 1880, in the early days of his artistic career, having made a winter's journey to Morocco, he exhibited in the Salon at Paris a picture called «Smoke of Ambergris,» a Moorish woman in white, holding some of the ample folds of her mantle above her head like a canopy. At her feet on the marble floor burned the ambergris, and the thin vapors, rising, filled her improvised hood as she inhaled the delicious fragrance. There was a mysterious charm in the picture, though, apparently, it was only a direct, cleverly handled study from nature, and in looking at it one felt a sensation as of the Orient brought to one's door. When I saw the Astarte at Boston I thought of this early canvas, and while there is no analogy between the two, it caused me to reflect that in the Salon picture there was an indication of the same phase of the artist's temperament that dominated him when he produced the Astarte. The love of things weird and mysterious, manifested in the fanciful portrayal of the Moorish woman, found a wider scope for expression in the mythical personality of the Phenician goddess. Originally, she was worshiped as the goddess of the moon, and the female, or productive principle.

The worship of Astarte was degraded by the Phenicians into a lascivious and wanton rite. She is depicted, therefore, not as the kindly and abundant mother of fruits and grains, like Ceres, but as the goddess of sensuality. ... She stands upon the crescent, and a cobra is coiled at her feet. Around her is a floating blue veil. The hem of her robe is richly embroidered with gold, the ornament including figures of the sun and moon, and lions, fishes, birds, and other emblems connected with her worship. On either side of her are the columns used in her temples. Behind her is the tree of life, only the pine cones which terminate its branches, however, being visible. Through her veil may be seen, on either side of her form, a group of three priestesses, shaking the sistrum, or rattle, and swaying to the measure of a wanton and luxurious dance. At her feet are her victims, whom her lusts have lured to their ruin, a vulture tearing at the flesh of one, and a chimæra devouring the other.1

We are told that Mr. Sargent painted this figure in a single day, and we can well believe it. It bears the marks of intrepid execution, and every part of it vibrates in harmony. 1 Handbook of the New Public Library.

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Brain and hand must have worked in perfect unison, and the figure and its accessories seem to have been carried to completion in a single sustained effort. The insinuating charm of the face, the vague, inscrutable enticement of the figure, with its diaphanous veiling of tender, gas-like blue, fascinate the eye. The dexterity of the work is amazing, its grace is irresistible.

The portion of the ceiling which includes the zodiac and the archer struggling with the serpent is admirable in composition, movement, and color. The figure of Adonis, with his robe flying from his shoulders, seen in back view, with the head in profile, one arm drawn up to pull an arrow, and the other straight to hold the bow, is as broadly rendered as the sculpture of the ancient Greeks. It is Hellenic in conception, and appears in fine contrast with the conventionalized forms of Egyptian and Assyrian art which environ it. That, while so different in spirit from these weird, symbolical figures, it does not seem in the least out of place, affords proof of what is indeed plain throughout the decorationthe rare skill with which the artist has woven a picturesque and harmonious whole out of so many incongruous elements.

In the figure of Pharaoh the artist has adapted the conventional design of the Egyptians, placing the head and legs in profile, and the body and arms in full-face view. This figure, and that of the Assyrian king, also following archaic conventions, are represented as of great stature. In both the uncouth forms of the earliest art are so skillfully translated that they do not conflict with the realistic treatment of the nude figures of the Jews. The slight proportions of Pharaoh, the slim waist, the long arms extended, and the ferret-like face, with the long, black-encircled eye, combine to produce an impression of sinister cruelty. The massive golden crown, dome-like in shape, adds an air of majesty and power. In the treatment of this figure, as in those of the Assyrian god and lion, in the right-hand portion of the lunette, the artist. has accomplished a tour de force such as has been rarely attempted. How able is this treatment is shown by the telling importance of the group of the Jews in the middle of the composition. Unlike the oppressors and their gods, they are painted life-size only, and with

as much realism as the decorative limitations allow. Here there are no problems involving the adaptation of archaic forms, and, as in the figures of the prophets, the painter appears as we know him in other work- a draftsman of force, style, and confident sureness, a col

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orist of restrained strength and comprehensive breadth of scale. The central figure of the group, on his knees, like his companions, but with his arms uplifted, and his face raised to Jehovah, while the other heads are bowed, is a fine piece of painting, simply conceived and as simply wrought. Its place in the group, and the contrasting attitudes of its fellows, not subordinated, but helping to show the idea expressed by this one for all,-the wail of agony and supplication from the twelve tribes of Israel, who have forgotten their God and worshiped the idols of the heathen, and now, with his altar-fire rekindled, turn to implore his mercy and protection, constitute one of the best illustrations in modern art of a subject interpreted in the plain language of painting, which may not transgress the laws of truth to nature.

The color-scheme of the frieze, as has been said, serves well its purpose in the ensemble of the decoration. The figures of the prophets, taken separately, present some fine characterizations, and in painting them, the composition having been determined, the artist has had a task difficult enough to cause him to exert his best powers, but uncomplicated by the archaic considerations in the lunette and the ceiling. Particularly worthy of note is the management of the strong reds in the figures of Joshua and Elijah, on each side of the Moses, and the intermingling of reddish tints with the gold in the garment and wings that envelop this commanding figure. Not less effective is the strong note given by the blue robe of Isaiah on the right, and those of blue and brown in the group of Zephaniah and Joel on the side wall at the left. Through these, and the prevailing white and neutral tints of the garments in the other groups, there is a fine play of color, subdued in just proportion to meet the requirements of the position of the frieze.

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II.

THE high reputation of John Singer Sargent, the painter of this remarkable work, makes him one of the most prominent figures in the modern world of art. No American artist has occupied such an exalted position as he has attained before reaching his fortieth year; none is more celebrated in Paris, London, and the other art centers of Europe. He has painted some of his best portraits in the United States, and «La Carmencita,» the picture which represents him in the famous Luxembourg Gallery in Paris, was painted in

DRAWN FROM LIFE BY CARROLL BECKWITH, APRIL 16, 1876.

JOHN S. SARGENT AT THE AGE OF TWENTY.

New York, and first publicly shown at the exhibition of the Society of American Artists. His career has been a cosmopolitan one, and his youth was passed among surroundings very different from those that affect the intellectual bent of most American boys who become painters and sculptors. He was born in Florence, Italy, in 1856, whither his parents had gone to live some years before. His father was Dr. Fitz-Hugh Sargent, a Boston physician, and his mother, whose maiden name was Newbold, and who belonged to a well-known family of Philadelphia, possessed the accomplishment of painting very cleverly in watercolors. Educated partly in Italy and partly in Germany, young Sargent entered the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence at a comparatively early age, and before he was eighteen had spent several years in art study. He learned to paint in water-colors, as well as to draw with the pencil or charcoal, and one summer, when he was in the Tyrol with his mother, Frederick Leighton, not yet a peer and president of the Royal Academy, but a famous English artist notwithstanding, meeting them, commended the boy's work, and counseled him to continue. His advent a year or two later in the studio of the pupils of Carolus Duran is thus described by Sargent's intimate

MODELED BY AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS.

BAS-RELIEF PORTRAIT IN BRONZE OF JOHN S. SARGENT.

friend and fellow-student in Paris, the wellknown portrait-painter, Carroll Beckwith:

means puritanical. The lighter side of his temperament found satisfaction in music, the theater, and literature, and in the keen appreciation of everything in the tastes and amusements of the day that had a new or original flavor. Though an eager reader, he was not a bookman, but an observer. «Alert »> is the adjective which perhaps best expresses the quality of his predominating characteristic. He was quick to see, and ready to absorb, everything that struck him as novel.

I remember how much we used to like to go to the Colonne concerts at the Châtelet, and to those given by Maître Pasdeloup at the Cirque d'Hiver, on Sunday afternoons. Some of us had heard Berlioz's << Damnation de Faust» at the former place fifteen or sixteen times. Sargent, who dearly loved the music, was struck by theodd picturesqueness of the orchestra at Pasdeloup's, seen in the middle of the amphitheater, the musicians' figures foreshortened from the high point of view on the rising benches, the necks of the bass-viols sticking up above their heads, the white sheets of music illuminated by little lamps on the racks, and the violin-bows moving in unison. While he listened he looked, and one day he took a canvas and painted his impression. He made an effective picture of it, broad, and full of color. Sargent's musical perceptions should be particularly mentioned in an analysis of his temperament, for they are very keen, and his knowledge of good music and his love of it are strong factors in his personality. Another strong temperamental trait is his susceptibility to the impress of race characteristics. He has shown this in the eager grasp of the picturesque, not only in foreign lands, but whenever he met with anything markedly racial in subject for a picture at home. His large canvas, « El Jaleo," a woman dancing, with a company of Spanish singers and time-makers behind her, and the studies he made of the Javanese dancing-girls at the Paris Exposition of 1889, are among the tangible results of this tendency. Besides his native language, he speaks and writes French, Italian, and German.

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It was on a Tuesday or Friday, the days when Carolus came to criticize our work, in the spring of 1874, at the old studio on the Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. I had a place near the door, and when I heard a knock I turned to open it. There stood a gray-haired gentleman, accompanied by a tall, rather lank youth, who carried a portfolio under his arm, and I guessed that he must be a coming nouveau. The gentleman addressed me politely in French, and I replied in the same lanpolitely in French, and I replied in the same language, but with less fluency, for I had not been long in Paris myself, telling him that the «patron» was in the studio at the moment, and asking him if they would wait. He evidently saw that I was a fellow countryman, for he then spoke in English, and we held a short conversation in subdued tones; for the school etiquette of course forbade talking while the patron was within the walls. At any other time the visitors might have had a more demonstrative reception. Carolus soon finished his criticism, and I presented my compatriots. Sargent's father explained that he had brought his son to the studio that he might become a pupil; the portfolio was laid on the floor, and the drawings were spread out. We all crowded about to look, and Carolus spoke favorably. He told the young artist that he might enter his class, and when he had departed we all crowded about again to look more closely at the drawings. We were Sargent's studio is always a sociable place. astonished at the cleverness shown in the water- Unlike many artists, the presence of visitors color and pencil work, and his début was considered a most promising one. He made rapid pro- or companions does not disturb him when he is gress from the day he entered the school, and painting. He seems to work without obvious gradually rose to perfection in academic study. exertion even in his intensest activity. «When his models are resting, he fills up the gap by strumming on the piano or guitar,» says one of his friends; «his manner while at work is that of a man of consummate address, and does not show physical or mental effort.» He

The serious and earnest side of Sargent's character always impressed his fellow-students in those Latin Quarter days. He had no taste for dissipation, though he was by no

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