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John Singer Sargent and the Art of Elegance
Arts & Culture

John Singer Sargent and the Art of Elegance

By Timothy Sandefur

Aug 20, 2020
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The Objective Standard
The Objective Standard
John Singer Sargent and the Art of Elegance
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Oscar Wilde, who lived across the street from John Singer Sargent, once said that “all art is quite useless.”1 Fifty years later, W. H. Auden said art (specifically, poetry) “makes nothing happen.”2 These statements are true, in a sense: Art is not a device for accomplishing some larger task, but a statement—an evaluation of life and the world. An encount…

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