Focus on The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and explain the Composition.
It is not certain whether The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit was commissioned by Boit or painted at Sargent's suggestion. Set in what is thought to be the foyer of Boit's Paris apartment, its dark interior space is reminiscent of those Sargent had recently painted in Venice. The composition was unusual for a group portrait, both for the varying degrees of prominence given to the figures—conventional group portraiture called for an arrangement in which the subjects were portrayed as equally important—and for the square shape of the canvas.The dimensions may owe something to the influence of Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas, which Sargent had copied, and which presages the geometric format and broad, deep spaces of Sargent's painting. When the painting was first exhibited, contemporary critics, including Henry James, wrote of Sargent's debt to Velázquez.
Art historian Barbara Gallati notes that the English translation of Las Meninas, "Maids-in-Waiting", is an apt description for the activity of the Boit children. Carolus-Duran, Sargent's teacher, had encouraged his students to study the work of Velázquez. The relationship between the works is considered so significant that the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) loaned The Daughters to the Museo del Prado in 2010, so that the paintings could be exhibited together for the first time.The brushwork of several passages has been seen as deriving from Frans Hals, and nearly contemporaneous works that have been cited for their similarities are Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and, especially for its psychological complexity, The Bellelli Family by Edgar Degas.Dressed in white pinafores, the children are arranged so that the youngest, four-year-old Julia, sits on the floor, eight-year-old Mary Louisa stands at left, and the two oldest, Jane, aged twelve, and Florence, fourteen, stand in the background, partially obscured by shadow.In very nearly hiding one of the girl's faces and subjugating the characterization of individuals to more formal compositional considerations, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is as much about the subject of childhood as it is an example of portraiture.
Henry James Edgar Degas pinafore Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) The Bellelli Family left Las Meninas Museo del Prado Pierre-Auguste Renoir Frans Hals Carolus-Duran Diego Velázquez Museum of Fine Arts