John Singer Sargent's Madame X

Madame X is a painting of a woman in a black, v-cut dress, painted by a man named John Sargent. It is 82 inches tall by 43 inches wide, making it nearly seven feet tall. When the painting first came out it was seen as scandalous and inappropriate. When the artist first revealed it, it was denied in many museums and forbidden from being shown to the public. This is just a little bit of the story of how a painting, forbidden from public eye, became a masterpiece, revolutionizing society’s view on women.
John Singer Sargent was born in 1856 in Florence, to an American father that was a doctor. He studied painting in France and Italy, which his father did not at first approve of because he wanted him to go into the sciences. One of his first painting shocked the world of art. At the Paris Salon, his portrait of Madame Gautreau was first seen as a scandal. To create a new and fresh start for himself, he moved to England. He joined the Royal Academy of …show more content…
Although he was famous for doing portraits of people, he did many more things. For example; on his trips back to America to visit his family, he painted watercolours of New York City. Many of the times he painted something, it was out of pleasure and because he wanted it, not to sell it and make a profit.
John practiced his own form of realism, which at the time was rare and unheard of. He effortlessly captured the fashion and beauty at the time through his paintings, which gave the people in his painting real, human-like qualities. This is why many highly respected people wanted him to capture them in a painted form. So, that in the future people would know what he/she looked like. He was strongly supported, but did not have many acquaintances, friends, or a relationship. Sargents pieces of art can be found in many places. For example; The Met, Boston Public Library , the Museum of Fine Arts,

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