Illlusion and photo-realism
Iian Neil writes:'Certainly Bouguereau does have a certain Romantic flavour to his works, but by and large he
did not work in the style of Delacroix, David-Freidrich, or Gericault, to name a few exponents of
that style. When I look at Bouguereau's work, the overwhelming impression I receive is of
Classical polish and perfection, its potential severity softened with aspects of Romanticism.One must understand that by describing Bouguereau's work as Photo-Idealism one risks
classing him amongst those who merely copied photgraphs. Most critics probably do not realize
that Bouguereau, like many of the great "academic" painters, did not rely very heavily on
photographs at all -- Bouguereau, like Pietro Annigoni half a century later, preferred to work
from life. The fact that his paintings are so extraordinarily verisimilutudinous is due to his
enormous technical ability, and not to a slavish attitude towards representing reality
"photgraphically".Iian's drawing
After all, why should we declare Bouguereau to be "photographic"? Is it true that the only
*real* reality is to be found in photographs? - that is obviously utter nonsense! The only reality
to be found is in reality itself. Bouguereau did not set out to imitate photos, although it is
possible he may have spurred himself ever onwards out of the sheer delight of pushing his skills
to the limit; nevertheless, he wasn't a parasite or a mediocrity -- he painted from REALITY and
not from a faded recreation of reality. After all ... can not the eye capture more of the world's
beauty than the photo? Can we not perceive the beauty of movement, the subtleties of colour,
and so forth, whereas our cameras struggle to be able to even take adequate photos in poorly
lit conditions? We humans don't need to spend hours in the developing room just to see what is
out there -- Bouguereau did not need to seek the Truth through photos -- the Truth was already
out there.http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/advanced/IianNeil.htm (2 of 3)1/13/2004 3:33:14 AM