Finally got round to seeing the AMERICANS IN PARIS 1860-1900 National Gallery exhibition tonight with O. The show is an overview of the work of a number of American-born painters who in the late 19th Century moved to Paris to study art, were taken seriously enough to be exhibited in the annual Salon exhibitions and who subsequently carried on the lessons learnt when they left.

Comprising 87 paintings spread over 7 rooms it wasn't too arduous - although needless to say, it being the show's last week, there was the usual bodily 3-point turns needed to get through the clumps of punters. There were of course quite a few names who were new to me and Mary Cassatt's work might bear more investigation but the two supreme artists represented are James Whistler and John Singer Sargent.

Whistler's "Arrangement in Grey and Black 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother" justifies it's iconic status when seen in the - er, paint? - and his "Symphony In White 1: The White Girl" is freed from it's use on book covers for Edith Wharton or Henry James to show the sweet virginal girl is standing on a snarling bearskin rug with flowers strewn at her feet. There is also a delightful landscape - not my most favourite area of art - "Harmony in blue and silver: Trouville".

Whistler was by far the better artist but Sargent is the artist whose paintings I would grab off the wall if allowed any three from the exhibition! His portraits of the monied classes, which made him so sought after when he lived, also helped him being dismissed for a while after his death but his work has since been re-evalued. Among the 8 works displayed is his 1879 "In The Luxembourg Gardens", a marvellous painting of the Parisian park frequented by a few of the American painters. A fashionable couple stroll in the twilight through the gardens, the woman swirling the hem of her skirt as the man, smoking, stares fixedly ahead. Around them other visiters enjoy the cool of the evening in the moonlight, so bright it shines on the water of the pond. There is also his huge square painting "Daughters of Edward Darley Bolt". Bolt was a fellow American painter who lived with his wife and four daughters in a spacious apartment on the same street where Sargent had his studio. Sargent painted the girls in 1882 in a strange pose, the two eldest girls are in an alcove and the youngest two staring challengingly at us. It has always struck me as an oddly disquieting picture... two facts are a bit strange too, none of the daughters married and the eldest two, dressed alike and surrounded by shadows, both in later life became mentally disturbed. Very spooky.

And then there is "Madame X" which was the subject of a book by Deborah Davis I read earlier this year. Virginie Amelie Avegno was born in Louisiana, relocated to Paris with her widowed mother during the American Civil war and who had later married the wealthy - and older - Pierre Gautreau. Her striking beauty soon had her being mentioned in society columns and the leading painters of the day were soon requesting to be allowed to paint her portrait. Her celebrity coincided with Sargent's emergence as the brightest talent in Parisian portraiture and after meeting through a mutual friend - who was also possibly Amelie's lover - these two socially ambitious people agreed that he should paint her for inclusion in the Salon of 1884. Amelie's naturally pale skin, strikingly offset by her auburn hair, was accentuated by her with all the cosmetic help available at the time: although she never went so far as enameling the skin as some women did - which occasionally resulted in death by lead poisoning! - she did use rice powder on her skin as well as accentuating the tips of her ears with rouge and using a mahogany eyebrow pencil and the deepest red colour on her lips. This vision is immortalised in Sargent's painting especially in the choice of dress - a jet black evening dress with gold straps. He became fascinated with her as he painted the picture but exasperated too by her laziness and inability to stand still. He certainly didn't help her in the striking pose he made her adopt, her head turned as far as possible to accentuate her profile while obviously straining her right arm to rest on a small table. It might have been while adopting this pose that her right strap dropped off her shoulder and rested on her upper arm. Sargent was struck by this arresting sight and painted her so. On completion both artist and subject were delighted with the result - the painting stands 7 foot tall - and it was submitted to the Salon, titled "Portrait de Mme ***" as an attempt at modesty although her look was so famous it would have been known to all Parisians in the know who it was.

Then they went and spoiled it by opened the doors to the Salon! There was soon uproar in the room where the painting hung. The critics quickly condemned this painting of such obvious erotic charge, her fallen strap and the defiant pose of a woman who is obviously unafraid to flaunt her sexuality and feminine power. Odd that the Salon would have featured paintings of any number of nudes - but these of course would have been either rendered in an ancient classical setting thus 'allowing' for the nudity or shown in the titilating style of a semi-dressed courtesan. This however was a woman of high society and an affront to her peers. Amelie went into hiding and when he heard that the Gautreau family were threatening to buy the painting at the end of the Salon and destroy it, Sargent removed the painting and kept it in his studio. He later repainted the offending shoulder strap in it's rightful place but the line of the neckline still shows it is being tugged down. He also renamed it "Madame X" instantly making her more of a stereotypical scandalous character.

The scandal had life-changing consequences for both Amelie and Sargent. He left Paris for London - taking the portrait with him - and never worked in Paris again. Soon he re-established himself in London and the 1884 Salon outrage was put behind him. Amelie slowly tried to ingratiate herself into society again but the scandalous painting was always mentioned. She even went so far as being painted again twice - the first was 7 years after the Sargant painting and amazingly she allowed herself to be painted again in profile and with a shoulder strap dropping down. However this time she was smiling benignly while dressed in frothy virginal white but her moment in the Parisian social world was fading fast. She fought hard against the ageing process - limiting her public engagements, removing all mirrors from her house, eventually moving away from Paris and living alone by the coast. She died of a fever aged 56 in 1915. Sargent outlived her by ten years dying of a heart-attack aged 69 - and he's buried in Woking!!

All in all, she strikes us now as a hopelessly vain and unsympathetic woman but when one considers the limited possibilities open to women of her class in that society, I guess she was making the best of what few good cards she had been dealt. Little did she know that she would actually get her wish and became internationally well-known. But did Sargent know all along? Tonight I looked back when leaving the room her portrait is hanging in and there she was, towering over the large group of onlookers, turning away from their gaze disdainfully, sure of her place in art's history.