Hobnobbing with the stars (or at least, the rich), Singer Sargent had access to beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes, and became an absolute expert in conveying sumptuous wealth in all its glory. Not all of his subjects were conventionally beautiful, but he painted them all as if they were. My favourite painting is there: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. Now there's a song title, if I ever heard one! I remember being really upset because I read somewhere that the little girls were actually little boys, but in this exhibition they are girls. I felt like he had painted me, outside in the greenery, concentrating. It's absolutely fantastic.
He was good at hands and ears (I noticed because I'm finding them particularly difficult to represent at the moment), and also the fact that most people don't have matching eyes. It was mildly upsetting that the only woman who didn't have a name was the Japanese one, an unfinished painting, but the fact that she didn't have a name like the Western women emphasised the snootiness and privilege of the more formal paintings.
That being said, there was a wonderful painting of Vernon Lee (or Violet Paget as she was known as), a lesbian who preferred to reject as much femininity as possible. The painting took only an hour to do, apparently.
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