Portrait of Madame X, painted by American artist John Singer Sargent in 1884, is the portrait of a young American expatriate and Parisian socialite named Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. The sexual evocativeness of her pose and the pale color of her skin caused much controversy after its unveiling and forced Sargent to withdraw it from the Paris Salon. This ruined his promising career as a portrait painter in France and damaged Gautreau's reputation, yet today the portraits flawless technical skill and composition have made it a timeless masterpiece that makes us wonder how it could have ever been considered nothing more than trash.
Gautreau was born in New Orleans, Lousiana, on January 29, 1859. After her father died in 1862 of wounds he received in the Battle of Shiloh, her mother took her daughters to Paris, where they established themselves in the highest ranks of French society. Gautreau grew up to become one of Paris' most celebrated beauties, something she prided herself exceedingly with. Sargent, like much of society, was fascinated by her looks and believed a portrait of her would launch his career as a famous painter. Thus begun his efforts to get her to sit for him. Chances that she would accept his request were slim, as Gautreau regularly turned down these types of inquiries. After two years of pleading on behalf of Sargent, she finally consented and chose him out of many other talented artists for the job.
After studying Gautreau's beautiful hourglass figure and going through her wardrobe, Sargent decided upon a revealing, black gown that would capture her essence and additionally provide a striking contrast with her unnaturally pale skin. However, achieving any progress on this portrait would prove to be difficult. She was a spoiled, fidgety model, and broke many appointments with the artist to attend to her social engagements instead. She eventually invited him to her summer mansion in Brittany, the Chateau les Chenes, to work on the painting. He started working on a series of preparatory works in pencil, watercolors, and oils, but he had difficulty deciding on a suitable pose. He blamed the complications on "the unpaintable beauty and hopeless laziness of Madame Gautreau." Finally, Sargent decided on a pose where her body would face the viewer, with her head turned away and her arm twisted onto a low table.
Even before the painting was finalized, it drew huge amounts of attention. Gatreau would regularly acclaim Sargents work to her acquaintances, despite never actually having seen the finished product. She claimed it would be a masterpiece, and
Sargent himself was proud of his work. When the painting was finally completed, it made its debut under the title Portrait de Mme *** in the Paris Salon in 1884. People were appalled. As Sargent put it, the doors of the Salon were hardly open before the picture was damned because of the sitters "flagrant insufficiency" of clothing. Gatreau's family unsuccessfully begged the Salon to take the painting down. Afraid of it being destroyed by the family, Sargent himself took it down and returned it to his studio. He defended his work by stating that he painted her "exactly as she was dressed, that nothing could be said of the canvas worse than had been said in print of her appearance". However, in a moment of self-doubt, he altered the left strap so that it faced upwards to do away with the provocativeness associated with a lowered strap.
We move through the painting almost solely through verticals, but perhaps what attracts us most to the painting is the genius use of color and the powerful contrast between black and white. For Sargent, accurately depicting her pale skin tone was a difficult task. He used a mix of lead white, rose madder, vermilion, viridian, and bone black, which give it almost a purple undertone. Aside from this, everything else is made up of dark, muted colors. The different shades of brown used for the background and the table are dim, yet luminous, while the black of her gown is so bold and deep, it seems infinite. The tiniest hint of color on her skin, an intense pink, can be seen on her ear. Apart from the use of color, the pose of her body, which shows as much as she withdraws not just physically, but emotionally as well, gives the entire composition a sense of mystery. Her pose and the curves of her body are also somewhat echoed in the low table. The line of her left arm continues down to the leg of the table, the curve of the base of the table continues through the hem of her gown, and the decorative twisting on top of the table leg resembles the twisting of her arm. It also provides a counter-balance. If it wasn't there, she could be viewed in an entirely different way. Her provocativeness would probably seem less apparent, and her powerful stance would be practically gone, making her seem weak. Sargent didn't create much texture with the paint and brushstroke themselves, but he did so more through the use of shadowing, especially on her gown. The only crevices that can be seen on her arms and neck make her movements look delicate. Lastly, if we consider the size of the painting (234.95 x 109.86 cm), we can assume that Sargent made her "larger-than-life" to make her seem grandiose. For this reason, there is plenty of visible detail present all throughout. However, it’s still somewhat hard to distinguish exact details from her face, perhaps to make her seem removed from the viewer.
The creation of the painting brought plenty of problems for both the artist and the sitter. People were afraid to be painted by Sargent and he was forced to move to London to begin anew. Gatreau on the other hand, became the focus of even more malicious rumors. Nevertheless, their humiliation was not in vain, as the painting is now celebrated. We must understand that the context of the time period is the key factor in differentiating the paintings critical reception back then compared to today. What has certainly not changed is the sort of fascination most of society has with "socialites", and how susceptive they are to criticism for almost every little thing they do, much like Gatreau. Yet, society as a whole still wants to see them crash and burn, and I'd imagine this aspect wasn't very different back then either.

Works Cited

Abel, Lynette. (n.d.). Aesthetic realism and john singer sargent's madame x. Aesthetic Realism & Life. Retrieved from http://www.lynetteabel.org/Art.html.

Davis, Deborah. 2003. Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X. New York: Tarcher/Penguin.

Kilmurray, Elaine, & Ormond, Richard. 1998. John Singer Sargent. London: Princeton/Tate Gallery.

(n.a.). (2014). Madame x story-theme. Artble. Retrieved from http://www.artble.com/artists/john_singer_sargent/paintings/madame_x/more_information/story-theme.