My first experience of a Bouguereau painting was much like yours,
down to the chills running down my spine. There was a painting in the
Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth of a mother and child sitting under a tree,
with the child lolling back off the mother's lap, a tree overhead and water
at her feet, and she was floating in space! holographic! I looked at the
name, had never seen it before, and thought maybe there was something wrong
with me, because I thought I knew what constituted quality in art, but if I
never heard of this guy, I MUST be wrong. I came back to Austin, went to
the city library, the University of Texas library and the Art History
Library, and found NOTHING in English, French or German. By now, I'm
thinking I must be an idiot. Then, six months later, I'm reading an
interview with Salvador Dali, wherein he comments that Bouguereau and
Meissonier could both paint a thousand times better than the Divine Dali,
and I thought, "YES!"
I went back to the Kimbell to see this masterpiece again, and was told it
was in the vault because there was some dispute as to the signature. I
asked, "If you could paint better than anyone who ever lived, would you put
someone else's name on your work?", but apparently art historians are too
close to their work to SEE the art.
I recently went back to the Kimbell, and the person I asked couldn't find
the painting in their database. If I'd known they didn't want it, I'd have
offered to haul it off for them.
