Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife
7:00 AM |
| John Singer Sargent, Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, 1885 |
It is sometimes little uncanny to discover the most unexpected things could somehow intertwine. Couple weeks ago I saw this Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife in the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas. And now I’m writing about this portrait of certain Stevenson who turns out to be the author of one of my childhood favorites, Treasure Island. A little different from how I imagined him I have to say.
The composition is somewhat odd and the portrait of Stevenson as he fidgeting across the room and his wife Fanny in the back right is nevertheless strange too. As Stevenson himself put it, "it is too eccentric to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my wife, in her wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at the extreme another end...all this is touched in lovely, with that witty touch of Sargent's, but of course, it looked damn queer as a whole." Stevenson published his most celebrated work Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886, just a year prior to this painting. So Stevenson might very well be working on his book at that moment--walking around chasing his thoughts in the room.
After the scandal of Madame X in Paris, Sargent retreated to England and had a hard time getting commissions. He depended on his friends for a while and painted them in their everyday life. Sargent met Stevenson in Paris in 1874 and remained friends for the rest of their lives. And it is here on this canvas that the artist captured a colleague in his most intimate and least self-conscious moment as he looks intensely into the viewer while dwelling deeply in his work.
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