Fortunately, the insightful documentary John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger spends much of its running time staring at the subjects of the painter’s portraits, who gaze back at us is if they were alive.
The doc traces Sargent’s life, and talking heads try to explain how his brushwork results in such compelling art, but I didn’t find that stuff as compelling as when the camera zooms in and lingers on the face of a subject. Sargent really had a gift for making it seem as if the subject is alert to your walking into the room and then engaging with you. They seem in mid-conversation instead of mid-pose.
We get to spend so much time unhurriedly locking eyes with these folks, mostly rich women from 150 years ago, that it’s like being inside a John Sargent Singer coffee table book.
The title refers to “swagger portraits” (which I didn’t know was a thing) – vanity portraits commissioned by the rich and famous to depict their subjects as grand, important and fashionable. Sargent excelled at these.
John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger is streaming free on kanopy.