I like reading about artists especially when the writer can kind of reveal their unique sort of personalities. This is an excerpts from an old paperback book I fell upon called Sargent, Whistler and Mary Cassatt by Frederick A. Sweet.
John Singer Sargent was a great raconteur and always delighted his sitters as well as his dinner hostesses with his charming manner and ingratiating conversation.
James McNeill Whistler was equally fond of dining out but drove his hostess to distraction by arriving an hour late or engaging in a near brawl with a fellow guest. He was a wit with the sharpest of tongues, a dandy, an eccentric, an argumentative, impractical, conceited and clever sort of genius.
Mary Cassatt was also a brilliant talker, in fact talked incessantly, loved to argue, was very opinionated, stubborn, quick to anger but soon forgot what she had been angry about. She liked the company of men and discussion of politics. She did not care for formal society even though she herself belong to it and maintained all the appurtenances fo gracious living. She had strong opinions about art, artists and collectors and expressed herself freely and often violently on the subject.
These sound like some people I know artists and non artists. stereotypical or is it just our human nature?
Reminds me of a saying…
Beware of artists
They mix with all classes
of society and are therefore
the most dangerous.
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