Henry, Viscount Lascelles 1925

This is John Singer Sargent's portrait of Henry, Viscount Lascelles, made with confident charcoal strokes in 1923. I imagine Sargent, his eyes darting between the sitter and the page, quickly capturing Lascelles with just a few well-placed lines. Look at the background: see how the vertical hatching creates a sense of depth, but also flattens the picture plane? There's a tension there, between representation and abstraction, that I really admire. Notice the layering of the charcoal, almost sculptural in places, particularly around the eyes and mustache, and the overall lightness, like a ghost. It reminds me of other society portraits of the time but has a rawness to it. Sargent’s mark-making almost seems to prefigure the gestural abstraction of the mid-century. What do you think it feels like to be on the receiving end of his gaze? These artists, they’re always in conversation, aren’t they?