Women entered higher education and professional careers in greater numbers than ever before, and changes in fashion (especially The post-Civil War period was a time in which women's roles in society were changing rapidly. The height of Sargent's career coincided with an historical era in which women claimed new personal freedoms. Henry James, in his 1887 article on Sargent in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, saw something about the young artist that made him "so happy as a painter of women." Sargent's women were not "the commonplace work that looks down at us from the walls of exhibitions," where "delicate feminine elements have so often been sacrificed." The women with whom Sargent surrounded himself, or met on his travels, inspired him to create vibrant canvases that reveal each woman's allure, intelligence, and complex humanity. Early in his career, Sargent earned praise for his portraits of women.
The resulting body of work documents a period of profound changes in American society and culture. Americans who desired to be seen as sophisticated and worldly sought him out to paint their portraits. A lifelong expatriate, Sargent was immersed in European culture and, as Americans traveled to Europe in greater numbers than ever before, became an important link between old world and new. In his elegant, fluid likenesses of leading figures in industry, society, and the arts, Sargent captured a new America-a country emerging from the ravages of civil war and eager to take its place on a global stage.
