I have to admit that for a long time I just didn't get what all the fuss was about the paintings of Bougereau. I've had instructors past and present who's eyes glaze over when you even mention his name. I'd seen some of his work in books and magazines and to me it looked like a lot of doe eyed little girls with broken pitchers. What's the big deal?
                 In college Bougereau was mentioned in every Western art survey class I've ever taken. He was the turnpost that marked where the Impressionists had resisted the drollness of academic painting and re-invigorated French painting. When the professor sneered at the work of Bougereau we would sneer also. It was fun to feel superior about something. Bougereau was the boogey man of painting. "Don't get too interested in technique or you'll end up like Bougereau!". Picasso's cast drawings would always be dragged out at this point, the idea being that he narrowly escaped the fate of letting his prodigious talent determine his fate rather than his striking originality. I had a good friend that was in the same art classes with me at college and he was obsessed with WB. I thought he was losing it. The professor's used to break his chops all the time. Looking back now I can see that he just really wanted to learn how to draw and paint. Boy was he in the wrong school.
            Yesterday the studio was all a flutter and I inquired as to what was up and was told that everybody was excited because there was a Bougereau just down the street at Christies auction house. So. determined to see what all the fuss was about, I put my brushes down and headed on over. It was kind of cool to have security following me around. I guess I looked kind of scruffy, I was wearing my camoflage shorts, a tank top, and I was a little bleary eyed from trying to determine which way the amoeba on my cast were facing the light. After walking though a few galleries filled with fake Titians (it's funny how people would emboss a label on the frame of a painting, "painted by Titian", that was so obviously not!) I finally found the Bougereau.
              I have to give Christie's credit, they did reserve one of their nicest locations for WB's "Pieta". It's set into a skylit alcove that affords a long view as you walk up to it. It really is a stunning painting, and if you're a student of Classical drawing or painting, it exhibits everything you've been learning about put into practice by a master who's not so far removed from our own time. I could see how he uses light to pull everthing together. The forms on the figures, particularly the dead "Christ" are just filled with subtle whiplashes of light that weave in and out of the dark and light zones. Bougereau was not a "show-off". When there are passages of painterly flourish there is always a good reason for it. Nothing is wasted. I couldn't find a single dead zone in the entire painting. If I had just the chalice that lies at the feet of the figures I would stare at it every day with a smile.
          So am I now a full tilt Bougereau fanatic? Of his "Pieta", absolutely. As to the rest of his ouvre I'm going to be smart enough this time to hold my opinion until I see more of the actual paintings. Janson's has been doing this man a disservice for over thirty years. You really have to see the work in person. I guess that can pretty much be said of any artist, but Bougereau in particular because the effects that he was after are so subtle. In the next room was an unfinished Lion Hunt by Gerome, who I've always liked probably due to his connection to Eakins. It was a painting that had all of his stages, from pencil drawing to wipe out with varying degrees of ebauche and frottis. I had a little bounce in my step as I walked back to the studio and as I was painting the head of a lion cast my brain spun with visions of angels and deserts.