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David, I thought this thread was about your odessy to find Bougereau's final resting place. You had shared this with me at a PSoA conference. I wandered here quite naively. I had no idea it had escalated into a Bougie bashing.
Always happy to chime in and defend the great master. I've had all that modern art propaganda shoved down my throat since I was in art school and it just never rang true for me. I was actually told by my last painting teacher since I was not willing to paint in the style of Cezanne and my worked looked better than everyone else's in the class I was ruining the class. My choice: leave the class and never come back, I get an 'A' or continue to do what I was doing, I fail. I didn't pick up a paint brush for the nexxt ten years.
It is nice to engage in a lively debate without the personal attacks.
Richard, thanks for bringing balance into the equation. To set the record straight, I don't consider Bouguereau the greatest artist of all time. In my pantheon he's a close number two behind William McGregor Paxton. For those keeping score, Ivan Kramskoy rings in at #3.
Peter, if you can paint in a refined manor you have the choice to paint any way. Degas is a great example of this. If you can't, your are controlled by your limitations and the best you can do is rationalize it. While we are at it, the other thing that really bugs me (besides Bouguereau bashing) is the inappropriate grouping of all refined works into the category of photo realism (mind-numbing is the typical adjective). The object of photorealism is to blow up photos into paintings. Certainly not my goal. Creating an illusionistic reality is something entirely different.
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