I have always been a man of first impressions. They strike me like bursts of light and overwhelm me, reducing me to silence, or to stuttering, telegraphic speech. I wave my hands and try to say something such as, “This painting of Millet’s is far too realistic for my taste. See how he has tried to get the absolute reality of every inch of the surface of these rocks, every leaf of these trees. Of course that can’t be done. Paint is paint and reality is reality.”
But what comes out is “Millet—all those rocks and trees. Silly old thing,” while my hands go like signal flags on a naval ship in the middle of a battle.
My first impressions have this trait: They keep happening. No matter how long I know someone it seems that I am capable of being surprised, astonished by them again and again; and each of these moments has the quality of absolute newness and truth.
I paint portraits for my living. I am popular and well paid. “Get Sargent to do your picture,” the owners of machine-gun factories and sugar mills will say to one another. “John Singer Sargent. American,but you wouldn’t know it. Speaks with an English accent. Speaks French like a Frenchman. A gentleman to his fingertips. He’s the right sort. Good? Of course he’s good. Good, but not too good.” What they mean is that, in addition to being a master of my craft—many painters are masters of the craft of portraits—I paint my subjects as they strike me in these moments of absolute clarity. Then I refine them so that they look beautiful.
These moments of clarity are not always pleasant; far from it. Sometimes I see things that the person buying the portrait would never want me to know. These things I soften—a little. Very well, sometimes a lot. I have painted greed and ignorance, and a great many times I have painted vanity. But I know how to make these things beautiful.
Only once have I painted horror.