John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). La Carmencita, ca. 1890. Oil on canvas; 91 5/16 x 55 7/8 in. (232 x 142 cm). Lent by Paris, Musée d'Orsay
One hundred and five years after her death, the Spanish dancer Carmen Dauset Moreno (1868–1910) has made her big return to New York City in the exhibition Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, on view through October 4, 2015. Best known by her stage name, La Carmencita, Dauset made her dancing debut in the United States in 1889 at the Broadway theater Niblo's Garden and continued her enchanting performances at Koster and Bial's Music Hall. She was then, as she is today, a showstopper, and she appears midway through the exhibition in the arresting, full-length portrait shown above.
In the image, she strikes a dramatic stance with one foot thrust forward, arms akimbo, and a slight twist to her torso. It is a pose with a purpose, bold and audacious, daring the viewer to look and commanding appreciation and respect. She is grounded by the weight of an enormous yellow satin and lace costume that when in motion accentuates the twists and turns of her dance. Nearby in the gallery you can see her dancing in an early film by the Edison Manufacturing Company.
Carmen Dauset Moreno (1868–1910), known as La Carmencita, dancing in an 1894 video by the Edison Manufacturing Company
In the 1890s, Carmencita's dancing extended beyond the floodlights and into the studios of some of New York's most fashionable painters including the 10th Street studio of William Merritt Chase, where Sargent arranged a series of evening performances. Contemporary accounts described that she danced like a "writhing serpent," and naturally, both Chase and Sargent were inspired to paint portraits. You can see Chase's Carmencita (1890) on view in The American Wing in a depiction that captures the tremendous energy of her dancing. In mid-twirl she raises her arms, clicking her castanets—her sash flying up from her dress. A gold bracelet and flowers have been tossed at her feet to suggest the audience's enthusiasm.
William Merritt Chase (American, 1849–1916). Carmencita, 1890. Oil on canvas; 69 7/8 x 40 7/8 in. (177.5 x 103.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Sir William Van Horne, 1906 (06.969)
Sargent, on the other hand, packed all of Carmencita's energy into a pose. To keep her standing still, he had to be creative. New York Times journalist H. J. Brock reported, "Sargent used to paint his nose red to rivet her childish interest upon himself, and when the red nose failed he would fascinate her by eating his cigar."[1] However embellished this newspaper account may be, it signals the new relationships between artists and celebrity dancers and how they shared the creative process.
From the beginning of his career, Sargent had been captivated by dance. "I have a very handsome Neapolitan model to draw and paint," the eighteen-year-old Sargent wrote to his cousin Mrs. Austin when he was a student at the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence. The model, Sargent recounted, "plays on the Zampogna and tamburino and dances tarantellas for us when he is tired of sitting." Sargent loved the folk dancing of his birth country.
In 1878, when he was just twenty-two years old, Sargent painted Capri Girl on a Rooftop (Crystal Bridges), an image of Rosina Ferrara dancing the tarantella by the light of the rising moon. A musician sits on the edge of the roof, one foot hooked over the other, singing to the beat of a large tambourine gaily decorated with red and green pom-poms. The dancer's arms are silhouetted by the dusky pink glow of the evening sky, creating sharp and indelible contrasts with the physical world.
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Capri Girl on a Rooftop, 1878. Oil on canvas; 20 x 25 in. (50.8 x 63.5 cm). Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
It was not the Italian tarantella but the flamenco that became the subject of Sargent's first major critical success at the 1882 Paris Salon. El Jaleo, a painting of a Spanish gypsy dancer, represents his early experimental style. The dancer, performing to the cries and music of the guitarists, exhibits a sensual fury that Sargent had observed at flamenco performances during his trips to Spain.
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). El Jaleo, 1882. Oil on canvas; 91 1/3 x 137 in. (232 x 348 cm). Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Cherished by its eventual owner, the art patron Isabella Stewart Gardner, El Jaleo was installed in a tailor-made "Spanish Cloister" in her museum and residence, Fenway Court, in Boston. Gardner and Sargent were close friends for over forty years and shared a passion for music and dance.
Sargent's early understanding of the expressive qualities gleaned from traditional folk dancers prepared him to embrace the radical ballet style of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes—a Russian touring company that merged erotic desire with innovative ballet techniques. "He cared little for theatre," remembered Nicola D'Inverno, Sargent's valet for over twenty years, "but he loved music and was, I think happiest in the company of musicians. I recall in particular a quartet from Spain and one heavenly visit by Melba. The Russian ballet always drew him, too."[2] And, so too, did Sargent draw the Russian ballet.
Left: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888. Oil on canvas; 74 13/16 x 31 1/2 in. (190 x 80 cm). Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
In 1911, Sargent sketched two premier dancers of the Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: Tamara Karsavina in the title role of Thamar and Vaslav Nijinsky in the role of Armida's slave in Le Pavillon d'Armide. Michel Fokine choreographed both ballets, and Sargent carefully portrayed the way in which the dancers carried themselves. He emphasized Nijinsky's exuberance and artistic flair by the coy and flirtatious tilt of his head and long sinewy neck. Fokine wanted his ballet dancers to create bold and complex characters whose movements were in keeping with the personalities they projected.
Sargent understood this quality, capturing, as the program noted, "insatiable lust" in his portrayal of Karsavina as Thamar, a wicked Caucasian queen who enticed, ravaged, and then drowned her male victims. Karsavina's heavy eyebrows and smoldering eyes coupled with the low décolletage enhance her character's role. Sargent's depiction of the dramatic seductress and the dashing slave grew out of his close acquaintance with members of the Ballets Russes and his attendance at their performances. Karsavina reminisced in her autobiography, Theatre Street, on her sittings with Sargent in his London studio: "Sargent used to make a drawing of me each year, till the war put a temporary stop to the Ballet coming to London. As he drew he talked in incessantly and liked me to talk."[3]
Left: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Tamara Karsavina in the Title Role of "Thamar," ca. 1911–12. Charcoal heightened with white chalk on white paper; 23 1/2 x 17 13/16 in. (59.7 x 45.2 cm). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Grenville L. Winthrop, Class of 1886 (1942.23). Image courtesy Harvard Art Museums. Right: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Vaslav Nijinsky in "Le Pavillon d'Armide," 1911. Charcoal; 24 1/4 x 18 5/8 in. Private collection
Artist, art patron, and museum founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney commissioned Sargent in 1913 to draw her in a stylish costume designed by Léon Bakst, the brilliant costume and stage designer for the Ballets Russes. Whitney's fashionable ensemble of "harem" pantaloons matched with a "lampshade" tunic was a sartorial reference to Bakst's costumes for the Ballets Russes' enormously popular 1910 production of Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov), an erotic Arabian fantasy based on the prologue to The Thousand and One Nights.
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, ca. 1913. Charcoal and graphite pencil on paper; 24 5/8 x 19 5/8 in. (62.5 x 49.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Gift of Flora Miller Biddle, Pamela T. LeBoutillier, Whitney Tower, and Leverett S. Miller (92.22)
Whitney's grand gesture, arms wide and expressive, is again Sargent's nod to the ballet's sensuous choreography by Fokine, who transformed classical ballet into a modern experimental form. This wonderful drawing is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. La Carmencita can be seen at the Met in Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends until October 4, 2015.
Notes
[1] W.H. Downes, "John Sargent," p. 31, citing H. J. Brock, "John Sargent, Man and Painter: Death of Modern 'Old Master' Releases Flood of Anecdote Regarding One of the Most Debated Figures in the Art World," New York Times, 19 April 1925, 5.
[2] For Kirstein's story, see Nicholas Fox Weber, Patron Saints: Five Rebels Who Opened America to a New Art, 1928–1943, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 13 and Lincoln Kirstein, Mosaic Memoirs, (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), 25–27. Nicola D'Inverno, "The REAL John Singer Sargent, as His Valet Saw Him," Boston Sunday Advertiser (February 7, 1926). [Sargent clipping file, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Archives]
[3] Tamara Karsavina, Theatre Street: The Reminiscences of Tamara Karsavina (New York E.P. Dutton & Co., 1931), 279–280.