Century of Grace-A Simple Sneak !

This single image is Michelangelo by Jean-Leon Gerome from the art show that I attended yesterday at The Blanton, now the Louvre of the Lone Star State. A pupil is showing the Belvedere Torso to the Godfather of Renaissance art. The exhibition`s title is: A Century of Grace: 19th-Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York. The Dahesh collects academic art, such as many of the drab paintings of the Academie des beaux-arts. This is the variety that I`ve read about, studied in school, but have never witnessed in person. The larger modern public has never seen these varieties, it is of little interest to most; `tis the barren school of stuff that the Impressionists (Wikipedia is monopolizing the information market-duhh) rebelled against! However, the PreRaphaelites embraced much of it, especially the orientalism. Yes, it`s stiffer and more paint-by-numbers, but much of it is very exquisite. This prudent/pruned post just acts as a preview for the full review, which will take some more time to bring to the table. This is true because many of the artists are unknown to me; hey, have you ever heard of Jules Dalou or Lawrence Alma Tadema ? I am starting to familiar myself with them and will do some digging over the next several days. Gerome`s work has photographic clarity and is a delight to gaze at when you`re staring at an actual breathing canvas. But you sure can understand better after going to this exhibit what artists like Monet were reacting to, or even shunning violently, with their free-form dappling of pastel paint, imitating natural light, as they say. And it sure is good to get a speck of culture from Europe via New York, because I don`t want to look at any more Remingtons, and hey, they had quite a few works by Gustave Dore! Orientalism is a topic that I can really get underneath, with its romantic distortions of Eastern lands. Just a morsel for now, but deep thoughts wrapped around vivid images will soon come to you, if you will be patient with his royal highness, Monsieur Bovee, your most gifted art critic.