Painting From Photographs. The Historic Debate

Interior with Portraits, by Thomas Le Clear, ca. 1865, oil, 25 7/8 x 40 1/2. Collection the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

A interesting exhibition just closed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and is moving to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (February 28-May 23, 2010). The show is called American Stories. Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915, and it includes major works by Winslow Homer, John Singleton Copley, George Caleb Bingham, William Merritt Chase, and dozens of other artists who commented on political, social, economic, and artistic issues in America during the time period.

One particularly amusing and relevant painting is a studio scene by Thomas Le Clear in which he expresses his opinions about the impact of the new technology of photography on fine art. At first glance it appears that the painting reveals two children posing for a portrait photograph in an artist's studio. The room is filled with sculptures, paintings, sketchbooks, an easel, and a mahl stick and yet a photographer is preparing to take a photograph with the subjects posed against an artificial backdrop. As art historian Margaret C. Conrads points out in the catalog for the exhibition, "at a time when photography was considered the more truthful medium and was a strong competitor of painting for portrait commissions, Le Clear unmasked the illusion, even deception, in the mechanics of both media, as well as the complicity of painters and photographers in their creation."

It turns out that neither of the two children posing for a photograph were alive at the time the painting was created (the young girl, Parnell Sidway, was 13 when she died in 1849; and her brother, James, was killed in a fire in 1865 when he was 25), and the setup in the studio is completely inaccurate. Le Clear seems to be saying that while photographer may be able to capture the truth of one moment in time, artists have the power to present a truth about life that transcends the limitations of time and random occurrences. This distinction would have been extremely important to artists in the 1860's when photographers were suggesting that their accounts of the Civil War were more significant that the drawings and paintings artists created on the battlefields. And when the market for painting collapsed during the recession that followed the war, artists like Le Clear felt that their very livelihood was at stake.

Questions about photography's impact on painting are still being raised today. There are those who feel artists must draw and paint from life in order to perfect their skills of perception, but there is a significantly greater number of painters who use photographs as supplementary resources or as primary references. The relevant issues are just as important today as they were for Thomas Le Clear in 1865.

Sargent's Studio Props

Nelson Shanks painting in the Robert Henri studio on Gramercy Park in New York

Two of the ten pilasters Mr. Shanks rescued from the Sargent studio in London.

The exterior of the building that housed Henri's top-floor studio from 1909-1929

"Lord Ribblesdale," a Sargent portrait incorporating one of the Tite Street pilasters

"The Earle of Dalhousie" standing in front of columns used in a number of Sargent portraits

Artists often use the same studio props in portraits and still lifes, and it is well documented that John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) often used the same columns, scarfs, chairs, lamps, and backdrops in the portraits he created in his studios in Paris, London, and New York. Richard Ormond, Sargent's grand nephew and the leading scholar on Sargent's work, has cataloged most of those props.

In 1994, Nelson Shanks (www.nelsonshanks.com) borrowed a studio in one of the buildings where Sargent held a lease from 1887-1900 so that he could create a portrait of HRH Diana, The Princess of Wales. While working on the portrait, Shanks noticed that the building next door (that Sargent leased in 1900) was being renovated and the contractor was taking out about a dozen pilaster decorations. Shanks negotiated with the contractor to rescue the pilasters which appeared in the backgrounds of a number of Sargent paintings, and he shipped them back to the United States so they could be appreciated by students attending Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia (www.studioincamminati.org).

Recently, Mr. Shanks transported two of the pilasters to New York where he is renting the studio occupied by Robert Henri (1865-1929) from 1909-1929. I photographed them recently when I began working on a second special magazine on artists' studios that will be published in the fall of 2010 (www.artistdaily.com). The pilasters flank an unfinished portrait of Renee Fleming that Mr. Shanks is currently developing.

It's fascinating to look at Sargent's portraits (www.johnsingersargent.org) and pick out the props that he used over and over again to lend character to his depictions of lords, ladies, dowagers, and industrial barons; and it's interesting how the props were used to enhance the coloration, lighting, or composition of the paintings. For example, the pilasters certain emphasize Lord Ribblesdale's erect posture and aristocratic appearance. The columns next to The Earle of Dalhousie make him seem tall and imposing, but Ormond points out that white skin on his forehead -- probably from a hat that shaded his face -- was an inside joke that Sargent played on his insufferable client.

By the way, if you love Sargent as much as I do, you might want to join The Great Portraits Tour to London that John Howard Sanden is organizing from June 13-20, 2010 (www.portraitinstitute.com). Richard Ormond will be meeting with the group to discuss his life-long study of his great uncle. The tour will also include visits to the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Royal Academy of Art, and Windsor Castle.