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| BOUGUEREAU'S ECCLESIASTICAL PAINTINGS - When
the French Section of Fine Arts was formally opened on the 5th of
May, 1893, by M. Roger-Ballu, many Americans were surprised to find
three devotional pictures by Bouguereau hanging in conspicuous places
among the great canvases of the east pavilion. These were: "Holy
Women at the Tomb," "Our Mother of the Angels" and "Le Guetier." The
two first are shown in our engraving. Of these two, the one on the
left was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1890, and at Chicago was
magnificently placed on the west wall of Gallery 43. The Madonna was
on the south wall of the same room. The three pictures were of one
order of excellence, but were astonishing only because Bouguereau,
the painter of the nude, the author of "The Nymphs and Satyr" and "The Wasp's Nest," had chosen to demonstrate
his power in the ancient technque of Raphael and Murillo. We find a
literary analogy in the writing of "La Reve," by Zola, where the
author of the wicked "Nana" has chosen to portray the virginal life
of the young Angelique, who embroidered chasubles at the Cathedral of
Beaumont. Thus the Parisian artists, the greatest in the world,
advance in their art, painting, as here seen, the forms of universal
life and saintly visions, to show the people that modern art has
contemplated and considered all. |
