Focus on Portrait of Madame X and explain the Reception.
Immediate reactions to the painting were strongly negative. Sargent attended the opening of the Paris Salon's 1884 exhibition, at which Madame X (under the title Portrait de Mme ***) was first exhibited, along with Ralph Wormeley Curtis. Curtis wrote that "There was a grande tapage [mob] before it all day." While some artists praised Sargent's style, Curtis wrote that the general public reaction was overwhelmingly negative: "All the women jeer. Ah voilà 'la belle!' 'Oh quel horreur!' [Ah, here is 'beautiful!' 'Oh how awful!'] etc."
Shortly after the exhibition's opening, negative reviews began pouring in. The first, in L'Événement (a French newspaper), read:"Mr. Sargent made a mistake if he thinks he expressed the shattering beauty of his model... . Even recognizing certain qualities that the painting has, we are shocked by the spineless expression and the vulgar character of the figure.": 140 Similar reviews followed suit. Many focused on the perceived unattractiveness of the painting's subject, particularly in comparison to the reputation Gautreau (whose identity was only thinly veiled by the anonymity of the painting's title) had as a great beauty, and often focusing on her skin, which was described as "pallid" and "corpse-ish".: 140 Others focused on the sexuality of the portrait. One critic for L'Artiste wrote, "Of all the undressed women at the Salon this year, the most interesting is Madame Gautreau ... because of the indecency of her dress that looks like it is about to fall off." The painting's standoffish promiscuity was lampooned. La Vie Parisienne published a caricature of Madame X, depicting Gautreau with her bosom exposed. The caption read: "Mélie, your dress is falling off!" "It's on purpose. ... And leave me alone anyway, won't you?": 142–143 Some reviews accused Sargent of trying to manufacture scandal, with a writer for Art Amateur calling Madame X "a wilful exaggeration of every one of his vicious eccentricities, simply for the purpose of being talked about and provoking argument."A comparatively small number of positive reviews focused on the perceptions of future audiences, with one theorizing that, "...if it is true that each generation remakes in its own image the work of nature, then future critics will see here our Parisian cosmopolitanism manifested in ideal form.": 145
Paris Salon Sargent cosmopolitanism manufacture scandal L'Artiste lampooned Ralph Wormeley Curtis Madame X Art Amateur La Vie Parisienne Paris Salon's