Sitting for a Sargent Charcoal Portrait

In his book "John Singer Sargent: A Conversation Piece", Martin Birnbaum describes his lively conversation with Sargent while the artist drew a charcoal portrait of him. To start out, they compared notes about Adolph Menzel, William Blake, and Winslow Homer. And they joked around. Sargent said how he didn't like "ba-NA-nas."

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Portrait of Ernest Schelling 
1910, Charcoal on paper. 24 3/8 x 18 3/4 inches (620 x 475 mm)

They chattered on and on, but Sargent was already at work. Birnbaum continues: "While talking, Sargent had been drawing rapidly, examining my features closely, at a distance of only three or four feet. Watching him at work, I was reminded of Paul Manship's little daughter Pauline, who on seeing Sargent make a pencil drawing of the sculptor, ran to Mrs. Manship and exclaimed, 'Mamma, Mr. Sargent is making a picture of father just like you would write a letter.' That exactly described his fluency and authority.

"Suddenly he stopped talking and showed me the charcoal drawing. He did not seem satisfied with it, — 'not very flattering, — a trifle unnatural, and rather Mephistophelian,' he commented. I, on the contrary, thought it was unduly youthful and complimentary and it showed that I had tried, without success, to look serious on this unique occasion. The scrutiny of the artist at such close range was more than I could stand, and I think he enjoyed catching my vain endeavor to be solemn.

John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Quincy Adams Shaw, Jr.

"He liked always a friend or two to be in to break the spell of a settled gloom in my countenance by their prattle...as Sargent likes animated, sympathetic, beautiful, talkative friends to do, in order to correct by their presence too lugubrious expressions."
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Previously: What it was like to sit for Sargent
John Singer Sargent: A Conversation Piece