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The 8-heads standard is indeed useful, both in the initial set-up of a figure and as an analytical tool to reverse engineer "what's gone wrong" with a drawing or painting. Same for the "eyes halfway down the head's height" rule (which I've just used over in Drawing Critiques to sort out a problem.) These are rules, not truths, so trotting out exceptions misses the point and does not compromise the utility of the rules.
Sargent. Didn't know the man, and haven't any idea what he was thinking as he constructed his pictures.
We had occasion here some time ago to view a painting in which the figure looked (to my eye) stretched, and upon checking the measurements, I found it to be 10 heads high. I queried this. To "prove" the accuracy of the painted version, the reference photo was posted. Unfortunately, the figure in the photo was exactly 8 heads high. At that point the "debate" ends (or should), and the only thing left to talk about is artistic license to idealize the figure.
It's fine to acknowledge the rule and deliberately decide to work outside its parameters for reasons of artistic preference. It's always disconcerting to the eye, though, to see rule violated carelessly or without apparent justification in the picture. In nontechnical terms, it just looks funny.
Regarding head size per se (and not as a relative measurement), sight-size does not actually produce life size, even if the canvas is next to the subject [Wrong. See humble confession of error, infra], because the artist's necessary distance from the subject reduces the dimensions. (A quick measurement of one's reflection in a mirror, even four feet distant, demonstrates this.) The only way to work life size (that is, the size that something is, not as it appears from a distance) is to physically measure the subject's head, transfer those measurements to your paper or canvas, and proceed thereafter by relative and proportionate placement of features.
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