Tom Lynch

It's the latest fashion to fictionalize the life of an artist's model captured on canvas--first Vermeer's girl, now Sargent's shoulder-baring beauty. In 2002's "I Am Madame X," Diliberto imagines the life of Virginie Gautreau, John Singer Sargent's notorious 1884 portrait subject. Labeled as provocative and scandalous, the painting was shunned when it premiered in France, harming Sargent's career and transforming the American-born Gautreau into the "It" girl of Belle Epoque Paris. As opposed to Tracy Chevalier's "Girl with a Pearl Earring," Diliberto's fictional memoir draws from her work as a biographer and is an incredibly well-researched and authentic look at nineteenth-century sexuality in France.

Gioia Diliberto discusses "I Am Madame X" on January 19 at the Red Lion Pub, 2446 N. Lincoln, (773)348-2695, 7:30pm. $4 donation.

(2004-01-13)

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