I was recently the happy recipient of a wonderful book, John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal. This incredibly beautiful book displays the artist’s charcoal portraits with stunning clarity and detail. I was so taken with these masterful portraits that I decided to try my hand at replicating some of them myself. Sargent was an absolutely gifted draftsman – one able to relay great visual information with the merest stroke of his brush, pencil, or in this case, charcoal stick. In an effort to learn from his example, I chose several of his portraits of women from the Edwardian Era (1901-1914) to draw for myself.
The book does a great job of cataloging the many portraits Sargent created during his long career but does not give any detail at all about what his process was like. There are some anecdotes from his subjects about his somewhat eccentric behavior during their sittings (talking to himself, pacing back and forth, etc.), but virtually nothing about his techniques. I decided if I was to learn anything from drawing his portraits, it would be through imitation – striving to achieve a likeness of a likeness. The portraits he created were relatively large, on average about 24×18 inches, and were, of course, executed in charcoal. My renditions of his work are much smaller, 9×6 inches. Because of the small size of my drawings, I chose to do them in pencil. I just couldn’t get the kind of detail I needed at this small size with a stick of charcoal. I also find charcoal to be messy. I’m more of a pencil person, if you will.
There are differences in the effects an artist can get with charcoal as opposed to pencil – Sargent’s charcoal marks are bold and emphatic. My pencil lines are more delicate. One thing I came to appreciate during this drawing lesson was the deceptive simplicity of Sargent’s drawings. He was able to convince his viewer that these spare, direct marks really were folds of fabric, an elegant neck, or wistful dark eyes. Sargent’s work was surely influenced by the Impressionist Movement that was burgeoning during his career. I think the artistic “shorthand” of giving the impression of visual information so popular among the Impressionist painters is very apparent in his charcoal drawings.
My study of the Sargent charcoals is comprised of six drawings. I feel like each of them is successful to a degree. I never intended to perfectly render exact duplicates of his drawings, and I most certainly did not. Each of my drawings is similar to his, but each has my own departures from his wonderful example.
I very much enjoyed doing these drawings. The ladies depicted each had their own personalities and style, and it was fun to try to capture their “essence” and not just their likeness. I learned a lot from trying to emulate such a gifted draftsman. I am challenged and inspired by his accuracy and insightful drawing ability.
I will probably try my hand at these drawings again. I’m sure I can glean more from each attempt I make. That’s the beauty of practice!
I hope you enjoyed this little journey into the world of portraiture and specifically the work of John Singer Sargent. I would encourage you to check out the book from which these drawings were revealed to me. There are many more glorious examples of charcoal portraits to see and appreciate. I’d love to hear your thoughts on his works and my attempts at recreating some of them. Just leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!