'Le Pavé Rouge': Making an Example of John Singer Sargent. Issue 1 (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Viraben, Hadrien
• Is Part Of: Visual culture in Britain. Volume 19:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 27
• Page End: 48
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: art criticism -- art press -- John Singer Sargent -- Robert de Montesquiou -- Paul Bourget -- nationalism -- portraitists -- Symbolism; Art -- Great Britain -- History -- Periodicals; Performing arts -- Great Britain -- History -- Periodicals; Art and society -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Performing arts -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; 700.94105
• DOI: 10.1080/14714787.2018.1441744
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1471-4787

Abstract

Abstract : 'Le Pavé Rouge' is the ironic title given by Robert de Montesquiou to a monographic article he devoted to John Singer Sargent in France in 1905. Within a frank condemnation of the American painter, the aesthete wove around Sargent's name a complex network of his own personal enemies (artists, writers, collectors) as other targets of his article. This article tries to establish how Montesquiou reinvested his own ambitions in a declaration of war. The aim is to show how Sargent becomes a strategic issue for Montesquiou's agenda as an art critic, writer and pre-eminent figure of 'le Tout-Paris'.