Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose...

On a recent early visit to Hyde Park, I admired the beautiful lilies and roses all still in bloom, gradually coming to life as the morning sun gathered height in the summer sky. This is one of my perfect images of England and 'Englishness' and one that I seek out everytime I return and this time was no exception. I was immediately reminded of the twisted, silhouetted forms of those same flowers that play an integral part in the painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose painted in 1885/6 by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925). This painting is often considered to be quintessentially English and having met great acclaim when exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1887, today is often taken to be the artist's most notable work, displayed in the Tate Britain.

The glow radiating out from the delicate Chinese paper lanterns, the play of light and colour across the girls' white dresses, the flowers and their stark forms and outlines, all captured as twilight gives way to night, ensured Sargent's renown as the 'English Impressionist'. Indeed, up close the delicate rendering of flowers, fabric or flesh reveals itself to be achieved through remarkably bold yet deftly applied brushstrokes, with the artist said to have resembled a fencer, darting repeatedly towards the canvas with precision and skill. The fact that the work took two years to accomplish has also added a certain intrigue to the painting - with the children - Holly and Polly - caught at a particular, fleeting moment of the day that lasted mere minutes. Apparently Sargent played tennis whilst waiting for the instant when he could tackle his work, and had to adapt to changing circumstances accordingly, exchanging the real flowers for artificial ones when the season was over, for example.

Sargent's artistic output does, however, go far beyond this one painting and ultimately the crisp prettiness of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose has perhaps done Sargent a disservice and lead to a number of misconceptions over the years. Firstly, although John Singer Sargent spent a large part of his adult life in England, he was in fact born to expatriate American parents in Florence, Italy, and travelled from one European city and country to another during his formative years.

Despite being an American national, he was consequently more cosmopolitan by nature, and his itinerant lifestyle meant that he felt forever the foreigner, and sometimes the outsider, reputedly feeling shy in large social settings in spite of his ability to speak five languages. Furthermore, his work encompassed other mediums than simply oil paint, and his truly prolific production throughout his career included countless charcoal and watercolour works and vast murals. Likewise, although he was lauded as an unparalleled, highly sought-after portrait painter and that a considerable part of his career was devoted to this field, he covered many other areas of subject material - landscapes, architecture, sculpture etc - and relished the opportunity to escape oil portraiture and the creation of pretty pictures for wealthy figures. In addition - and linked to the previous point - Sargent's work has often been mispresented - reproached for being superficial and lacking true substance; I certainly remember being taught to view his paintings as clever representations of frills and frocks but with no real 'message'. However, surely that is to miss the intention of Sargent as an artist and to fail to set him in an artistic context.

Having trained in Paris in the atelier of the realist portrait painter Carolus-Duran - and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts - Sargent learnt to paint au premier coup and acquired a swiftness in approach that must surely be unmatched. Like Velázquez, he developed an ability to reproduce incredible detail with deceptively broad, visible strokes, apparently weilding large brushes rather like those of an artisan rather than an artist, to recreate an unbelievable degree of realism and accuracy with minimal detail. Influenced by French impressionism (he was friends with Monet) but still rooted in concrete reality, Sargent did not merely explore impressions from light and shadow but seemed to seek the physical and material sustance of the subject, not primarily their soul.

His portraits capture the essence of the individual in that moment, but do not attempt to offer a narrative or reveal social background; little or none is proposed. Sargent is said to have selected the two girls for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose for their hair colour and not solely direct sentiment and likewise was fascinated with the famously pale luminosity of Madame Gautreau's skin, as opposed to being infatuated with this grand figure from Parisian society. How ironic that the scandal that followed Sargent's presentation of Madame X at the Salon of 1884 in Paris , ultimately led to his leaving France and his success in England with Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose just two years later.

For a public fed on 'meaningful' paintings with heavy references to historical events or offering some kind of insight into the nature of the sitter or subject, this would pass for a sorry lack of depth. His work could thus entrance and intrigue due its technical skill but would not haunt the viewer, and no amount of talent in execution could compensate the perceived spiritual emptiness. This could perhaps explain why Sargent's art fell out of favour shortly after his death in 1925, yet when you look at the skill and breadth of his artistic production, it seems a shocking error of judgement or reputation. The quality and incredible quantity of his outcome is utterly breath-taking and Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose is just one of many, many works...