Rosina, Rosina

Ya'll know I recently became infatuated with John Singer Sargent. Ya'll also already know that I'm writing a paper about his flamenco dancers for my American Art class. In the course of my research, I came across a painting I had never seen as a part of his oeuvre (body of work) and wanted to share it with you not just because it's one of the most beautiful paintings I've ever seen, but also because the focal figure is a constant in his early work.

It's always fun to find a reoccurring theme/figure in things, right :)?

This is Dans les Oliviers, á Capri (1878) featuring then seventeen-year-old Rosina Ferrara, an Ana-Capri girl. It's 31.5 x 25 inches, oil on canvas, and there are three versions. Two are in private collections and one is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This picture doesn't really do it justice...the golds, her pink skirt, the deep greenblue-gray of the trees are much more vivid. I wish I could see it in person!

I think what makes me love this picture is the almost dream-like quality it has. Rosina is draped over a gnarled old olive tree amidst an overgrown olive grove. She is kind of entwined with the tree, making her a part of the magical landscape. The streak of her pink skirt gives the painting a visual pop. All of the background is in some kind of mystic haze, while Rosina and her tree the only truly defined elements. Some scholars have suggested the tree is a stand-in for Sargent, the artist playing the undepicted male half of a romantic pair.

The piece is kind of wild and magical and Sargent has really captured grace, mystery, and beauty all in one painting.

I first saw Rosina in this picture, called Capri (1878). In this work, she is dancing on a hotel roof at what could to be cool-colored twilight OR bright illumination from a full moon . She is accompanied by a friend playing a tambourine and she is swept up in the dance, pink skirted hips swaying right as her gracefully raised arms swing left. Supposedly, the dance she is performing is called the tarantella, an energetic dance of whirling steps that depicts a love story.

Sargent first really established himself as a proficient through the Fumée d'ambre gris (1880), which I mentioned in the previously article, an exotic orientalist portrait of a woman all in white, surrounded in white, scenting her clothes with the aphrodisiac ambre gris. I'd argue that Capri is a precursor to that success, a practice in the different shades of white.

In my sources, it's not identified whether or not this is actually Rosina, but I would argue that it is based on the pink skirts, the up-do, and the fact that in the following picture, she has onions strung over her shoulder. This work, called Stringing Onions (1878), is a warm, quiet working scene...the women are confined in their space, but the golden white walls and large window make the atmosphere warm instead of oppressive.

This portrait of Rosina (1878) has her in her typical Capri dress, onions slung over her right shoulder, and hand on her hip, a traditionally Sargent pose. Furthermore, the hand is bent at the wrist, so it is the top of her hand that connections with her hip while her palm faces the viewer. See if you can pose your hand as such so you'll see what I mean. Sargent does have an affinity for these contorted, uncomfortable gestures...you'll see poses like this more and more as you continue historically through his oeuvre! (Rosina's backward reaching arm in Dans les Oliviers has a similar stretch, in theory, to Madame X's backward reaching arm)

Born in 1861, Rosina Ferrara was born in Anacapri, Capri. She was described by the artist Charles Sprague Pearce as "the tawney skinned, panther eyed, elf-like Rosina, wildest and lithest of all the savage creatures on the savage isle of Capri." I sure hope he meant it, and she took it, as a compliment. Rosina was painted by other artists, but of the 16 known paintings of her (that I could find), 12 were done by Sargent (I am skeptical of two of those, however). One of the artists to paint her, George Randolph Barse, later became her husband in 1891. She died in New York in 1934 of at age 76 of pneumonia.

"Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend."

Before this term, I had never taken an American art class. I didn't really know much about American art, period. And in my mind, I wasn't really that interested. Can't explain it, but that's how it was.

But then came this term. And this class (American Art of the Gilded Age, 1860-1900). And I have probably the most incredibly cool, most rockin' American art professor of all time. And slowly but surely, through Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Thomas Eakins, James McNeill Whistler...I started to become a fan. And then I fell in love.

John Singer Sargent- 1856-1925

Though of American lineage, Sargent was born in Italy, trained in France, and lived most of his life in England. He's most typically known for his luxurious portrait Madame X, and while she is quite sumptuous, she's not my favorite work of his. But she does typify my favorite aspect of his work, which is the elegant female portraits. You gotta admit, there's just something about a well dressed, good lookin' lady.

Lady with a Rose (1882) of Charlotte Louise Burckhardt was the first portrait to really strike me. Here Charlotte is pictured in all black on a neutral, unremarkable background which emphasizes her as the focus of the piece. In her extended left hand, she gingerly holds a wide rose between her thumb and forefinger. The innocent white of the rose plays off the blackness of her dress and the dirty-drab background so nicely. My favorite part of the whole thing though is her facial expression. Her lips are quirked in the sassiest of smirks and the look in her eye suggests she's merely humoring Sargent rather than willingly playing a part of this whole scenario. She has personality, she has spark, and you want to ask her story! And you didn't need a fancy background or a colorful dress. You just needed her, being her, and holding a flower.

That's, in my opinion, the magic of Sargent. He captures the lively reality of his sitters. We could get into the debate of whether the works depict who these women really are or if the image is manufactured from Sargent's perspective of them, but I'll forego any debates for now. :)

Sargent studied under the French painter Carolus-Duran, who emphasized the works and style of Diego Velázquez (also a total fave)...this meant going at the canvas with a loaded brush to place very particular strokes of the paint from the get-go, instead of the very academic style of drawing and underpainting to start. Sargent's initial interest lay in landscapes, but Duran was a portrait artist and benefitted Sargent most as a tutor in that arena.

Sargent studied in Spain for a brief season, but the bad weather drove him and the colleagues he was traveling with to Morocco. There, he painted Fumée d'ambre gris, the orientalist portrait that really set is career on fire (Totally gorgeous). Though Spain hosted him for only a brief period, he did, however, absorb a great deal about Spanish music and dance before he left the country, inspiring him for his future masterpiece, El Jaleo.

This was a study done in preparation for what would become El Jaleo. The theme of his Spanish dancer paintings is actually my research paper topic for this class. So different than his refined, soft socialite portraits...the portraits of his exotic spanish flamenco dancers are powerful, and dramatic, and evocative. He seems to be most interested in the most angular, contorted gestures and movements (hints of this, I think, can be seen in his society portraits too...from Lady with a Rose's awkwardly bent right wrist to Madame X's strained, backward reaching right arm). Capturing the movement is also important, seen in the SWISH of the dancer's shawl and ruffles of her skirts.

I would say more about it, but I'll save that for when I have completed my paper and can comprehensively share my thoughts. Gotta keep you guys on the edges of your seats, after all.

Portraits (women portraits, couple portraits, family portraits, children portraits, OMG, so many PORTRAITS!) were what made Sargent famous, but towards the end of his career, I think he was getting a little tired of it...:

"I hate to paint portraits! I hope never to paint another portrait in my life. Portraiture may be all right for a man in his youth, but after forty I believe that manual dexterity deserts one, and, besides, the color-sense is less acute. You can better stand the exactions of a personal kind that are inseparable from portraiture. I have had enough of it."

See what I mean?

Sargent was also a prolific watercolorist, and I have in NO way given you but a crumb-sized taste of what he can do, how he worked, or all that jazz. But hopefully your curiosity is peaked so you'll continue research on your own...:)