The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
John Signer Sargent, The Daughters of Edaward Darley Boit, 1883
When examining The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit by John Singer Sargent, I am initially struck by the openness of the composition and peculiar placement of Boit’s four young daughters.

Sargent’s arrangement of the girls along with the large vases and rug fragments balances the work. The central segment occupies the focus of the painting in two ways. First, the rug creates hard horizontal and vertical lines contrasted by the distinct coloring of the rug and the floor. The rug comprises the majority of the lower right hand of the painting effectively cutting it off from the other parts of the piece. In this section, the youngest child stops playing with her doll and gives her full attention to someone, perhaps her father, facing her.

The second youngest daughter stands completely to the left and is cut off by the hard vertical line between her and the large vase separating the two rooms. Like her sister, she also stares blankly at the viewer. Hidden in the shadows of the back room stand the two eldest daughters. The second eldest daughter reflects her younger siblings body language while the eldest daughter fails to acknowledge anyone who may have just walked into the room and leans against the vase, unconcerned. The roles of the vases are important as they, along with color and placement of figures help to balance the painting. The red room divider balances the red dress of the second youngest girl standing to the left. Furthermore, the stoic expression and lifeless quality of the girls posing reminds me more of a still life than a family portrait. The girls almost blend into the surroundings and become a part of the room rather than individuals living in it. The maid-like clothing of the girls suggests perhaps their future domestic roles and furthers the notion of lifelessness. Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Boit is more than just a family portrait. Through Sargent’s clever use of space, color, and positioning, he creates a surreal atmosphere leaving the viewer intrigued and oddly mystified.
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The Daughters Of Edward Darley Boit and The Virgin Suicides

Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

John Singer Sargent, Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882
You’ve just stepped into a place were you are not welcome. Their gaze meets yours and you immediately go to turn away. You’ve locked eyes with the Boit daughters. They are mesmerizing, and utterly untouchable. These sisters are the focus of John Singer Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. The girls in the painting are just as mysterious as the Lisbon sisters in Jeffrey Eugenides’ 1993 novel The Virgin Suicides.

Julia Boit, the youngest, resembles the spirit and joys of youth. While Florence and Jane, hide in the dark ashamed of the adolescence. None of the daughters in the painting ever married, and they all turned to each other for support. They were a cult in and of themselves. The Lisbon sisters of suburban Detroit allowed no one in either, and remained aloof to the outside community. Eugenides writes, “It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”

As you try to piece the Boit sisters’ stories together, you find your self faced with an impossible task. They are connected, yet eerily separated from each other. These nineteenth-century sisters’are cold and they beckon you to drop your gaze. The Lisbon sisters hold the same mystery, the closer you get to these girls you realized how far they are from reality. They are beautifully haunting, and hard to shake.

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