Sargent's murals for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - John Singer Sargent - Cover Story

Magazine Antiques, July, 1999 by Carol Troyen

Sargent's preparations for the murals were comprehensive. He made a scale model of the dome complete with sketches in plaster of all the designs so as to test his idea of executing the rotunda decorations entirely in bas-relief [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. When this scheme proved unworkable, he developed a new plan combining painting, bas-relief, and architectural ornament. He made many drawings of individual figures; details of hands, arms, heads, and even knees; and many compositional sketches. The murals for the rotunda were painted on canvases in a rented studio on Columbus Avenue in Boston. The murals for the stairway, preceded by hundreds of drawings and by large off sketches, were painted in London and Boston. The canvases were then taken to the museum and glued to the ceilings in an elaborate process that required eighteen men.(9)

For such a large project it was common for artists to rely on assistants to enlarge their sketches and execute other tedious pans of the job. Sargent received some help producing the plaster reliefs from Joseph Arthur Coletti (1898-1975), a Boston sculptor. He was dependent on the goodwill and patience of a small number of loyal models. His favorite, an African-American bellman named Thomas McKeller, posed for many figures, both male and female. Transformed and idealized, his handsome features and physique were the basis for the figures of Apollo and Pan and for both the male and female singer in Classic and Romantic Art (Pl. II).(10) Sargent's principal ally was Thomas A. Fox (1864-1946), a well-known Boston architect, who assisted with the technical aspects of the murals and served as his agent when the painter was out of town.(11) But as Fox noted repeatedly in his memoirs, Sargent essentially produced the murals by himself.(12)

Most of the subjects Sargent devised for the rotunda pay homage to the arts and the classical tradition. As such they were consistent with the beaux arts practice of depicting classical gods and heroes in allegories of the artist's invention. Thus, to personify the debate between classic and romantic art Sargent showed Apollo, Pan, and Athena presiding over a contest between a chaste and a lusty singer. The museum's role as the guardian of culture is symbolized by Apollo and the Muses over one portal (see Pl. I, left) and by Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture Protected by Athena from the Ravages of Time (Pl. III) over another. Representations of the liberal arts (music and astronomy) appear in two of the small roundels, while Prometheus, the Titan from Greek mythology associated with creativity, is depicted in a third. Three of the four large bas-reliefs in the rotunda represent classical figures: Eros and Psyche, The Three Graces (Pl. V), and Aphrodite and Eros.(13)

The murals around the staircase underscore the museum's allegiance to the classical tradition by detailing the exploits of gods, titans, and mythological heroes. Perseus, Hercules (Pl. IX), Orestes (Pl. VII), and the monsters that bedeviled them all make an appearance. Appropriately, the entrance to the library is surmounted by figures representing philosophy and science and by an enormous lunette depicting the Danaides, who endlessly fill their water jugs at a fountain representing the source of knowledge (Pl. IV).