John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Joseph Pulitzer, 1905
Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.
—Joseph Pulitzer, 1904
Despite lackluster interest in the genre and professed disdain for the upper-class, cosmopolitan American artist, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was renowned for his work in portraiture.1 Like the work of Whistler—a compatriot abroad in Victorian London—Sargent preferred a subdued palette that permitted focus on the expressive potential of tone to conjure mood. An example of Sargent’s use of chiaroscuro (Italian: ‘chiaro,’ light; ‘oscuro,’ shadow) is the iconic “Madame X,” (1883-84), a full-length canvas of a socialite whose sensuous porcelain skin is emphasized in contrast to her revealing black gown. Through juxtaposition of extreme light and dark tones the picture produces a dramatic tension.
A lesser-known painting of modest scale that draws upon the use of chiaroscuro is Sargent’s “Portrait of Joseph Pulitzer,” the Hungarian–American media mogul and Congressman who made his name in journalism by acquiring the newspaper, St. Louis Post–Dispatch and later publishing the tabloid, New York World. The pale figure is seated enveloped in darkness with a diverted gaze suggestive of contemplation. Pulitzer had become legally blind. With subtle economy, Sargent depicted a sense of introversion approaching isolation. According to Pulitzer’s guy-Friday, Norman Thwaites, the expression captured the sitter’s mercurial personality:
Hide, with a sheet of paper, one-half the face and you have a benevolent middle-aged gentleman. Observe, now, the other half, and you have the malevolent, sinister and cruel expression of Mephisto. Unconsciously, the painter had presented what he saw.
In his description, Thwaites attributed intuitive insight to the artist who unconsciously understood his subject as complex, conflicted. Pulitzer is portrayed as powerful yet, decrepit; kind yet, cruel. When the portrait was described to Pulitzer, he would have had to reconcile any disappointment with his initial interest in having commissioned Sargent, who was known for his candor. Pulitzer had insisted on realism, claiming that he wanted to be portrayed, “Just as I really am with all my strain and suffering there.”2 An article on the making of the portrait suggests that Sargent altered the expression after happening to catch Pulitzer berating someone while entering the studio.
The picture dates from 1905, thirty-five years before Sigmund Freud would relocate to London. But as suggested by Thwaites’s account, Freud’s theory of the unconscious, conveyed in The Interpretation of Dreams (published 1900)3 may have already become popular in circles outside Vienna. In addition to discussing patients, Freud delved into personal accounts, asserting:
On my way to discovering the solution of the dream all kinds of things were revealed which I was unwilling to admit even to myself.
Freud’s seminal text posited that consciousness enacts censorship as a coping mechanism. To protect against confrontation, the mind caches disturbing thoughts and experiences in deep recesses beyond awareness. They fester and multiply—as though embedded agents of disease—causing distress and dysfunction. Freud argued that distortion—the weird aspect of dreams—is a function of camouflage; a means whereby the unconscious encodes communication to bypass internal censorship. The psychoanalyst might extract coded dispatches from the obscurity of dreams and through interpretation, elucidate the root cause of self-destructive behaviors such as obsessive–compulsive and hypochondriac disorders.
Born in Hungary in 1847, Pulitzer emigrated from Germany to the U.S. by conscripting with the Union Army and serving in the Civil War. Branding a reputation in journalism at The Dispatch, his work focused on exposing corruption with investigative reportage and editorials “assailing government corruption, wealthy tax-dodgers, and gamblers.”4 A posthumous gift by Pulitzer founded the Columbia School of Journalism and established the Pulitzer Awards. Prizes are announced annually in recognition of excellence in American journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music, and drama. In keeping with his legacy, the majority of Pulitzer’s in journalism have been awarded in recognition to exposure of corruption.
Yet, Pulitzer’s journalistic career was not uniformly brilliant. To the contrary, he presided over a dark chapter. Upon acquisition of The World, Pulitzer revised the paper’s practices to include sensational stories and illustrations to appeal to a wide audience. Under his stewardship, it became the most circulated newspaper in New York, hosting a fundraising campaign to build a podium for the statue of liberty. The tabloid was challenged by a competitor, William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. As Pulitzer and Hearst vied for readers, competition led them to appeal to base instincts of the masses – filling their journals with gossip, schadenfreude, and even pornographic content. The papers devolved into fake news and fear-mongering. At a manic juncture—1896-98—the feud fueled American animus for war with Spain, leading to the Spanish–American War in 1898. (As of 2016, 43 American widows were still alive and receiving veterans’ benefits from this conflict.)5
yellow journalism (Britannica): the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation.
The interlude between Sargent and Pulitzer and the fruit of their collaborative effort suggests theories advanced by Freud’s protégé, Carl Jung. The personalities of the artist and the congressman suggest Jungian archetypes. Sargent is the introvert whose feeling and intuition render him perceptive. Pulitzer—perhaps equally sensitive despite deprivation of vision—is the intellectual whose abiding interest in sensational stories brought him popularity and wealth, but whose discriminatory and abusive behavior suggested harsh judgment.
Of particular interest with respect to the portrait is Jung’s conceit of the shadow self. The shadow represents characteristics intrinsic to human nature repressed by consciousness to reconcile oneself relative to behaviors and expectations of society. When aspects of identity are hidden, a person may fail to realize motivations that drive self-destructive patterns and habits. The personality may become splintered, or suffer cognitive dissonance – the attempt to justify their unreasonable behavior (such as rationalizing remaining in an unsatisfactory job or abusive relationship).
cognitive dissonance (Britannica):
the mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. The unease or tension that the conflict arouses in people is relieved by one of several defensive maneuvers: they reject, explain away, or avoid the new information; persuade themselves that no conflict really exists; reconcile the differences; or resort to any other defensive means of preserving stability or order in their conceptions of the world and of themselves.
Despite its profound role in determining identity and behavior, the shadow remains elusive. We concern ourselves with self-esteem and reputation, external markers of identity that are measured against mores, all the while unaware that we have buried aspects of ourselves to the extent that we don’t appreciate the whole truth of our personality. Splintering occurs not just in individuals, but within societies and cultures; it pits projected virtue against hidden shame.
According to Jungian scholar, James Hollis, there are several manifestations of the shadow that stem from certain commonplace behaviors:
• Insufficient free will to live the life we want.
Manifests in splinter personalities and splinter agendas.
• Refusal of accountability
Manifests in use of projection, prejudice, cognitive dissonance.
• Enticement of excitement
Manifests in power complex, allure of celebrity.
• Failure to accept responsibility
Manifests in blaming others.
• Awareness
Manifests in recognition of reality, accountability.
Pulitzer suffered from extreme sensitivity to noise, perhaps exacerbated by loss of sight. His ailment may have manifested a psychic dissonance, or inner-conflict. Although Pulitzer overcame class barriers and prejudice as a self-made Jewish immigrant, he lacked empathy – exploiting child labor (the Newsboy Strike of 1899) and verbally abusing employees and caretakers. Despite his concern to expose the truth, he was drawn to sensationalism – issuing scandalous exposés in The Dispatch and fake news in The World. Frail to the extent that he had his windows insulated to buffer ambient sound, he yet had the moxie and moral backbone to take on Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and J. P. Morgan—among the most powerful men of the Gilded Age—during Taft’s campaign for the presidency in 1908 when The World exposed a $40 million fraud regarding U.S. purchase of French assets in the Panama Canal zone.
It was Teddy Roosevelt who established the correspondents’ office at the White House. 6 He dealt directly with journalists, sometimes anonymously leaking stories for political advantage. But when journalists began inquiring en masse about the missing funds, Roosevelt declared the news articles, “libel upon the United States government.”7 He targeted Pulitzer whose outfit launched the charges and filed suit against him, his paper and press, claiming, “It is…a high national duty to bring to justice this vilifier of the American people, this man who wantonly and wickedly and without one shadow of justification seeks to blacken the character of reputable private citizens and to convict the federal government of his own country.”8
Pulitzer responded with the editorial, “The Persecution of the Press,” in which he argued that the president can’t muzzle the press:
The persecution, if it succeeds, will place every newspaper in the country…completely at the mercy of any autocratic, vainglorious president who is willing to prostitute his authority for the gratification of his personal malice. 9
The suit traveled to the Supreme Court who in an unanimous decision of 1911 (the year of Pulitzer’s death) maintained that there is no federal law against libel. After the ruling which was hailed as a “Great Victory for Freedom of the Press,” Pulitzer wrote:
No other president will be tempted to follow the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt no matter how greedy he may be for power, no matter how resentful of opposition. 10
Please scroll past notes to comment.
Thanks for your interest.
Peace and love, Poppy
FURTHER RESOURCES, NOTES
Library of Congress: National Child Labor Committee Collection (1908-24): Lewis Hine, photographer (1874-1940)
James Hollis, Encountering the Shadow, Jungian Society of Washington (0:04:34)
Joseph Pulitzer, Voice of the American People, American Masters, PBS
Official trailer (0:02:14)
Mike Pride, “Just as I really am with all my strain and suffering there”
https://www.pulitzer.org/article/just-i-really-am-all-my-strain-and-suffering-there
Ibid.
The Interpretation of Dreams, a guide by the Freud Museum, London
https://www.freud.org.uk/education/resources/the-interpretation-of-dreams/
Biography of Joseph Pulitzer
Facts you may not have known about Memorial Day, ABC13, Houston
https://abc13.com/memorial-day-veterans-military-army/1362506/
James A. Jacobs, “The President, the Press and Proximity,”
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-president-the-press-and-proximity
Ronald G. Shafer, “A newspaper accused the president’s family of profiting from a foreign deal. The president sued. No, not Trump. Teddy Roosevelt,” The Washington Post, October 15, 2019
Ibid.
Biography of Joseph Pulitzer
Ibid.
Great mix of art, psychology, politics. All made relevant to today but also a refreshing change to Covid and WEF reads.