John Singer Sargent in Spain: Eluding the Stereotype

<p>The aim of this thesis is to present John Singer Sargent's unique vision of Spain as well as to analyze this part of his work through the use of methodologies such as Orientalism and Spanish cultural studies, an approach that has not been undertaken to date.</p> <p>The thesis intends to demonstrate that Sargent's early paintings -along with those of his American counterparts who traveled to Paris- were strongly motivated by the prevailing cultural orientalism of the moment in France, one of those extensions being the so called <em>españolismo</em> that exacerbated the most stereotyped dimensions of Spanish history and culture.</p> <p>Undoubtedly, the artist's most iconic work related to Spain is <em>El Jaleo</em>, which could be considered the pinnacle of the portrayal of Spain in the Western imaginary at the end of the XIX century. However, despite the great success obtained by this canvas, the artist rarely portrayed images with this subject matter again. On the contrary, he refrained from depicting images as highly topic-oriented as this one, being aware that by doing so he was perpetuating a stereotyped image of Spain. This idea is at the core of our thesis, which will try to demonstrate Sargent deliberately rejected this colonial vision of Spain and focused on realistic and aestheticized representations of the country.</p> <h1> </h1> <h1> </h1>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Master

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Liberal Studies

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Domenech, Cristina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Paul Julian Smith

• Arts and Humanities
• Fine Arts
• Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
• John Singer Sargent
• Spain
• Orientalism
• Post-Colonial Studies

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5226

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-6286