''El Jaleo'' is a large painting by

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

, depicting a Spanish Romani dancer performing to the accompaniment of musicians. Painted in 1882, it currently hangs in the

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded ...

in Boston.

Background

The painting was inspired by a five-month trip Sargent made through Spain and North Africa in 1879, which also yielded a smaller oil painting, ''The Spanish Dance'' (

Hispanic Society of America The Hispanic Society of America operates a museum and reference library for the study of the arts and cultures of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America, the Spanish East Indies, and Portuguese India. Despite the name, it ...

). Chronologically and thematically, the painting is related to a series of works Sargent painted during a subsequent stay in Venice; these, too, include dramatic light effects, exotic models, and restrained coloring.Kilmurray, Ormond, p. 26 Impressed by the costumes and theatrical manner of Romani dance, the artist returned to Paris and began work on a large canvas whose scale suggested a performing stage.Chong, et al, p. 159 The name ''El Jaleo'' refers to both the broad meaning of ''jaleo'', a ruckus, as well as the specific dance known as ''jaleo de jerez''.Prettejohn, p. 18 Sargent John Singer Spanish Dancer

Sargent planned the composition of ''El Jaleo'' for at least a year. The painting was preceded by a series of preliminary studies, focusing particularly on the dancer's stylized posture. The result of thorough preparation, ''El Jaleo'' is characterized by an assured and rapid handling, and may have been completed in no more than a few days.

Description

Almost wide, ''El Jaleo'' is broadly painted in a nearly monochromatic palette, but for spots of red at the right and an orange at left, which is reminiscent of the lemons

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

inserted into several of his large paintings. At odds with the academic practice of carefully modulated tones, Sargent dramatized the contrast between rich blacks and the shining white skirt of the dancer, caught in the strong footlights and painted briskly so as to suggest movement. The lighting also creates long and eerie shadows on the rear wall that comprises nearly half the painting. The female dancer, leaning asymmetrically, is placed to imply forward motion, from left to right across the canvas. She is wearing a large, embroidered shawl wrapped around her shoulders, illustrating common flamenco costuming. The dancer's pose, with the outstretched left arm, is a depiction of standard flamenco dance technique and style. ''El Jaleo'' is the most theatrical of Sargent's early major works.Kilmurray, Ormond, p. 25 The lack of a barrier between the viewer and dancer helps create the illusion that we are present at the actual event; the manipulation of space and lighting communicates the energetic rhythms of the dance, its sound and movement. ''El Jaleo'' is an example of Hispanism, the phenomenon of widespread fascination with Spanish culture throughout Europe and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The painting has been called both an example of John Singer Sargent's

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

and also his early affinity with the Realist movement.

Provenance

Sargent exhibited ''El Jaleo'' at the 1882

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

, where the painting was purchased by a Boston patron, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge. It was the last subject picture that Sargent exhibited at the Salon, and his greatest success there. In 1888 the painting was publicly exhibited in Boston, at which time museum patron

Isabella Stewart Gardner Isabella Stewart Gardner (April 14, 1840 – July 17, 1924) was a leading American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. She founded the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Gardner possessed an energetic intellectual cur ...

, the heiress wife of a Coolidge cousin, expressed her interest in it. In 1914 she borrowed ''El Jaleo'' to exhibit in her museum, and constructed the Spanish Cloister gallery especially for ''El Jaleo'', which is framed by a Moorish arch and reflected the painting in a large mirror running

perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

to its left edge. Coolidge then gave the painting to Gardner, and Sargent presented her with an album of pencil drawings he had made as preparatory sketches for the work. ''El Jaleo'' was on exhibition at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

in Washington D.C. for a short time in 1992, on loan from the

for the first time since 1914. At that time, the painting had been recently cleaned and restored by Alain Goldrach.

Critical reception

After the initial exhibition of ''El Jaleo'' in 1882 at the French Salon, John Singer Sargent became, as one writer put it, "the most talked-about painter in Paris.""The Salon. From an Englishman's Point of View." Art Journal (London) 44. no. 7 (July 1882): 218Simpson, Marc. Uncanny Spectacle The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent. p. 68: YALE UP, 1997. Print. Some critics in 1882 said that the painting caused Sargent to join the ranks of the French Impressionists.Simpson, Marc. Uncanny Spectacle The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent. p. 51: YALE UP, 1997. Print. A critic for ''Le Figaro'' called the painting "one of the most original and strongest works of the present Salon."Simpson, Marc. Uncanny Spectacle The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent. p. 53: YALE UP, 1997. Print. Some writers hailed the painting as clever, while others dismissed it as a vagary of the artist.Simpson, Marc. Uncanny Spectacle The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent. p. 58-59: YALE UP, 1997. Print.

Notes

References

*Chong, Alan, et al. ''Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum''. Beacon Press, Boston, 2003. *Fairbrother, Trevor. ''John Singer Sargent: The Sensualist''. 1st ed. p. 102.: Yale UP, 2000. Print. *Heller, Nancy G. "What's There, What's Not." ''American Art'' 14.1 (2000): 8. *Kilmurray, Elizabeth, Ormond, Richard. ''John Singer Sargent''. Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd, 1999. * Prettejohn, Elizabeth. ''Interpreting Sargent''. Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1998. *Simpson, Marc. ''Uncanny Spectacle The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent''. N.p.: YALE UP, 1997. Print. *Sweeney, Louise. "Sargent's 'El Jaleo' Dances Anew." ''The Christian Science Monitor'': 12. Mar 10 1992.

Background

Description

Provenance

Critical reception

Notes

References

Further reading