John Singer Sargent's non-Oriental Orientalism

John Singer Sargent was one of many Orientalist painters in the nineteenth century. Through his many paintings with this subject matter he and his work should be considered on a different level from his contemporaries. Sargent's work has a consistent focus on the formal elements of line and color, which prove to be of more importance than displaying the overtly sexualized Eastern woman as many of his contemporaries did. Sargent also differs from his contemporaries in that his possible sexual preferences for the male figure also led him to create paintings that while considered Orientalist works lack most Orientalist elements.