Letter from Boston
Sargent Exhibition
By MASAKO YAMADA
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サージェント展
ボストンでは今、上流社交界の肖像画を多く描いた、フィレンツェ生まれのアメリカ人画家、ジョン・シンガー・サージェント(1856-1925)の絵画展が話題を呼んでいます。サージェントの遠い親せきにあたるという友人とともにこの絵画展を訪れた雅子さん。伝統と歴史を感じさせるサージェントの絵は多くの人を魅了しています。
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There is currently a very popular exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts
featuring the works of John Singer Sargent. This exhibition has been featured
in many local newspapers and magazines, and large advertisements are posted in
the subway stations and on the sides of public buses. I don't know how popular
Sargent is in general — especially outside the United States — but I do know
that Bostonians like to claim him as one of their own.
I went to see the exhibition on a weekday morning, but the line was longer
than the one to get into "Star Wars." Although local college students are
usually allowed into the museum for free, I had to pay $5 (¥600) just to see
this one exhibit, and I was told that I could not enter the hall until 12:30.
The crowds were so thick that the museum had to limit the number of people
entering the hall at any given time.
Even though I entered at the appointed time, the hall was still packed
with people. All those people must have taken time off from work to visit
the museum.
What is so intriguing about John Singer Sargent? Sargent was an
American, but he was born in Europe and spent a great deal of his time there.
He was of a class — the upper class — that mingled socially with
sophisticated Europeans. It used to be fairly common for Americans of his
class to hobnob in Europe. Many of his works depict members of his social
circle. He was born a bit before the Lost Generation of expatriate
Americans that congregated in Paris, but he painted plenty of portraits of
the luminaries of his time, including John D. Rockefeller and Henry James.
I'm obviously not part of this high society, but I am intrigued by its
customs. I think many of the other people at the exhibition visited for the
same reason. It's also obvious that Boston still has many vestiges of these
traditions. Boston is a pretty diverse city nowadays, but it still has many
conservative elements.
My undergraduate college was once a place for proper young ladies to get
an education and the school retains traditions from that age even today. The
very expensive Beacon Hill area of Boston is known as the area where people
with old money live. One can experience a whiff of this lifestyle by
taking afternoon tea at one of the superdeluxe hotels downtown.
I also wanted to see this exhibi
tion because one of my friends is a distant relative of John Singer Sargent. I
went to see the exhibition with him, which made it much more interesting than
going by myself.
I tried to imagine him in the same cosmopolitan setting. He doesn't live a
blue-blooded lifestyle right now, so it was rather difficult. He laughed a
little when I told him this (somewhat too honestly), but I think he wished he
could experience some of that luster.
It's not too surprising that his life is very different from that of his
famous relative — my lifestyle is nothing like that of my turn-of-the-century
ancestors back in Kyushu, either. But I could see why he wanted to retain
some of that family heritage. It's a heritage that thousands of eager
museumgoers have been willing to stand in line to see.
The interesting thing, however, is that even Sargent himself seemed to get
tired of painting high-class women in puffy dresses napping in the sun.
Later in life, he rejected commissions by wealthy patrons and actively
worked on more serious topics.
The last room in the exhibit hall featured some of his final works. The
room had a completely different feel from the other rooms. It was dominated
by a large mural depicting soldiers blinded during World War I. There
were also some very conspicuous religious pieces, including a very heavy,
stern bronze cross and an abstract mural of (probably) an African
religion.
Judging from what he chose to depict toward the end of his life, I have the
feeling that he would not have been too disappointed to see his descendants
live a less glamorous life than his own.
Shukan ST: July 23, 1999
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