Ah voilà ‘la belle!, Oh, que le horreur!,  Superbe de style, magnifique d’audace! –  The Daily Beast has an exclusive excerpt from David McCullough’s new book The Greater Journey. In it he recounts of one of art history’s great melodramas - the story of John Singer Sargent’s obsession with the socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, aka Madame X, and the scandal his painting of her caused in Paris when it was first exhibited. Never gets old, and the painting, of course, is a stunner.