What it was like to sit for Sargent

Dr. William H. Welch and three of his colleagues sat for John Singer Sargent, and here's how it went.

The Four Doctors by John S. Sargent, 1906.
The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore

"The first sitting was taken up with trial groupings; the following ones singly and in pairs. The artist talked incessantly of everything and smoked cigarettes continually while he worked. The boldness and accuracy of his work conveys the impression that he sits steadily at his easel.

"This, however, is not the case. He walked back and forth, talking and smoking, but when at the picture his brushwork was rapid and precise. At one of our group sittings he seemed in despair, saying: 'You all seem so much alike—four white dots on a canvas. It is not a picture.'

"With that he approached the canvas and passed the brush rapidly before it. 'I have it!' he exclaimed. 'There is a big Venetian globe in my other studio. If there are no objections, on medical grounds, it will make the portrait a picture.' I replied that there were no objections to its introduction: in fact, I thought it would be symbolic of Dr. Osler's fame encircling the earth.

("Unfortunately, the globe was so massive it could not fit through the studio door. Undeterred, Sargent simply directed that the doorway, and a good chunk of the wall, be chopped to permit the object's entry."—Gazette)



Welsh continues: "We each averaged two sittings a week, which owing to the artist's press of work, he was frequently getting mixed with the sittings of others, one of whom was Lord Roberts, who broke in on us several times. Dr. Osler gave the artist the most trouble. Sargent complained frequently that Osler was 'fidgety.' My head he painted on a single impression. The present portrait of Dr. Osler is the third attempt. He did not attempt to 'niggle' the first two into acceptability, but rubbed them out each time.

"Sargent's affability and unaffected simplicity are engaging, and his broad interests make him an interesting talker. He lent to simple incidents of the street the same penetration and humor that attended his remarks on art. At the time of our sittings he was anxious to finish his work in London and get to Syria in order to make sketches for his unfinished decorations of the Boston Public Library, which seemed to have become a great burden on his conscience. Contrary to the general
impression that Sargent is difficult to sit for, I never while before him felt that I was being scrutinized."
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Source: Brush and Pencil, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Mar., 1907), pp. 95-99

More about the painting "The Four Doctors" online at JSS Gallery.