Fallen From Grace
The promiscuity of “Madame X” fell under particular scrutiny, with “La Vie Parisienne” (French weekly magazine) publishing a caricature of the painting wherein the sitter’s bust is completely bare. Paris of 1884 still had a preference for classical art, both thematically in its mytho-historical depictions, and stylistically in its tight, blended brushstrokes and vibrant color harmonies.
Pierced by Light
Giving up Paris after this reception, Sargent was invited to Lavington Rectory in Petworth, England, to paint portraits of the Vickers, who become Sargent’s most prominent English patrons. There, in the Vickers’ Sussex garden, Sargent painted an oil sketch capturing little Dorothy and Billy Vickers watering potted lilies. This study, although highly simplified when compared to “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,” shares some of its compositional elements, such as the perspective of looking down upon the children.
In 1885, Sargent went on a boat trip with fellow American expatriate painter Edwin Austin Abbey, an expedition from Oxford to Windsor. Along the Thames at Pangbourne one September evening in 1885, Sargent dove from the weir, striking his head twice and obtaining a serious gash.
During this riverside pause, the painter glimpsed Chinese lanterns hanging among the riparian trees and beds of lilies. Feverishly sketching the scene’s light effect, his drawing and the garden study of the Vickers children planted the seeds for the blossoming of “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.”
Catching Color
“Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,” an artifact of two summers (1885 and 1886) of painting from life in the Broadway village dusk, is a massive canvas (68 1/2 inches by 60 1/2 inches) that captures two young sisters engrossed in a moment of playful exploration at twilight. Amid beds of carnations and roses, with lilies swaying on their stalks, the girls in white dresses light their respective lanterns, peering into their paper orbs in total absorption, carefully wielding their flames.
The canvas is alive. Everything is animated as if blown in a breeze, from the tall grass swirling in eddies around the girls’ ankles to the medley of flowers flecking the composition. With paint, Sargent captured the abundance of a quickly diminishing moment, elevating it to the realm of the magical by memorializing it on canvas.
The delicate mauve light is caught by the collars and creases of the sisters’ frocks and reflected off their sandy tresses, creating streaks of lilac that harmonize with the pink roses. There is a beautiful color harmony created at the confluence of the two light sources—the diffuse amethyst glow of dusk and the incandescent amber of the paper lanterns. As warm and cool complementary colors, they intermingle, offsetting each other and creating an otherworldly atmosphere.
Sargent’s working method for “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” was just as alive and vigorous as the visual effect of the finished painting. Fully committed to working from life (en plein air) and having chosen the dusk light as the atmosphere for his composition, Sargent only had three viable minutes of painting each day. Before joining daily afternoon lawn tennis, the painter would make sure his setup was ready: easel, canvas, palette, brushes and all subjects were in position—flowers, Dorothy and Polly Barnard in their white frocks, and paper lanterns.
When the light turned into the soft periwinkle that Sargent sought, the entire group of artists staying at Broadway village would pause their game of tennis and accompany the painter to his easel to witness three minutes of concentrated artistic effort. As summer turned into autumn, this sliver of time became earlier and shorter, and Sargent’s painting outfit became more and more insulated. The biographer Evan Charteris described him as “muffled up like an Arctic explorer.” Artificial roses were purchased from Marshall and Snelgrove as the real blossoms wilted in the declining temperature.
Recovering Beauty
In an anecdote told in a letter from Gosse to Evan Charteris (British arts administrator), Gosse described a charming moment when he, seeking the painter’s company, approached Sargent at his easel: “‘Oh! what lovely lilac hair, no one ever saw such beautiful lilac hair!’ The blue sky reflected on my sleek dun locks, which no one had ever thought ‘beautiful’ before, had glazed them with colour, and Sargent, grasping another canvas, painted me as I stood laughing, while he ejaculated at intervals, ‘Oh! what lovely hair!’ The real color of the hair was nothing, it existed only in the violet varnish which a single step into the shade would destroy for ever.”
“Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” is thus a record of the artist’s return to himself and his working methods after a period of wavering in his artistic identity. The name of the painting is itself a testament to the joyful painterly spirit that was revived during Sargent’s summers at Broadway village. One evening, while the canvas was being painted in the garden, a visitor asked the painter what he wished to call the composition.
Sargent happened to be humming opera composer Joseph Mazzinghi’s “The Wreath,” the lyrics of which are: “Have you seen my Flora pass this way? / A wreath around her head, ... she wore / Carnation, lily, lily, rose.” The answer to the visitor’s question came in the form of catchy lyrics—a morsel of the prior night’s gathering around the piano. Music was a central component of the summers at Broadway, Abbey writing, “We have music until the house won’t stand it. … We have really had a gay summer.”
