I’m by no means that skilled or knowledgeable about art, but I really like Bouguereau. His paintings seem to channel that Renaissance quality of celebrating his subjects as they are. It’s not abstract, amorphous and seemingly meaningless like a lot of modern art.
To me, it depicts the real, and the mundane, and seems to express gratitude for the things that we often take for granted whether it be a moment of play with a crab, or a simple pomegranate, in these examples.
Your instincts are wonderful. I love Bouguereau. I needed him after the blood and guts of Caravaggio. I understand that Caravaggio made a greater contribution to the development of schools of art, but Bouguereau makes me feel good.
And for all those gentle paintings, he was having a hard time of it. He lost his first wife and outlived 4 of his 5 children. Lot of TB in that family. And he seems to have been a bit of a mommy’s boy. But, still, he made us feel happy.
From Wikipedia:
At the age of 12, Bouguereau went to Mortagne to stay with his uncle Eugène, a priest, and developed a love of nature, religion and literature. In 1839, he was sent to study the priesthood at a Catholic college in Pons. Here he was taught to draw and paint by Louis Sage, who had studied under Ingres.
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Bouguereau became a student at the École des Beaux-Arts.[4] To supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology.
I also like him.