The exhibition at the Blanton, A Century of Grace: 19th-Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York, really filled up a black hole that has existed in my art education for some time. The question is: why did the Impressionists rebel so vehemently against academic art? Some of the answers to that question are contained in this humble show of about 50 paintings, prints, and sculpture from the Dahesh Museum in New York. I mean in his day, Jean-Leon Gerome was a big star, but now we mock his works, flog him with a whip for his feelingless brushstrokes and their lack of realism. Was he pulling the wool over our eyes with all of his pretty pictures? "Aint true", said the little red hen, who realized that he thought he was doing the right thing!You can walk through the exhibit in about an hour, and even still look at all the works thoughtfully. I took a break on one of the fancy benches, and also picked up a couple postcards from the Dahesh Collection at the Blanton Lilliputian giftshop. I then went back around the show again, and took a few notes with the teeny pencil donated by the Blanton Team Member. I would drink each painting up for five intense seconds, sucking in the colors and forms, medium or theme meticulously. Then when I walked away, I shut my eyes, and conjured the image back to life on my cerebral desktop, and so long as it uploaded, I fancied I had total recall. In this way I was enabled to write about it afterwards, with some clarity. Then I would completely forget about it until the next morning, then after drinking beaucoup java, I shut my eyes pensively, and then would see if a slideshow of the opi reappears. It did in this case, so case closed!
As you walk around the square room the walls or panels are a rich blue against alternating ones of a lighter blue. There are many large background placards that explain important topics such as the Academie des Beaux arts, Orientalism, or the large timelines of political and cultural milestones of the 19th century. The former did much to keep things in perspective for me, such as the French Revolution, the Commune of 1871, the Franco-Prussian War etc... I realized that these events were altering the thinking in Europe, and that different camps of artists were starting to crop up in reaction to the turbulent events of the day.
My favorite piece was Lord Frederic Leighton`s Study for "Captive Andromache", a depiction of Hector from Book Four of the Illiad, imagining the fate of his wife Andromache, who stoops to drawing her own water. This is mainly a color study, and the blues, pinks, ochres, and whites really spring out and dazzle the eye. I haven`t seen the major work, but this one had a most sweeping impact on me.
Moses before the Pharoah 1883-Paris, by Gustave Dore was done in charcoal, pen, and ink wash on paper. The placard says that it influenced early cinematographers; I was seeing Cecil B. DeMille as I contemplated it. Dore`s illustrations of Dante`s "Inferno" are some of my favorites! Right next to it was The Massacre of the Innocents by Dore as well and this pen and ink cast its spell over me magically. The only actual painting by Dore was The Black Eagle of Prussia, 1871, and it fares from the Symbolist School. Since Dore illustrated a lot of poetry, such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Colleridge, this is not surprising. You may want to pick up "Symbolist Art" by Edward Lucie-Smith, one of my favorite writers of art history. In the same camp, and seeming to simulate the work of William Blake, this striking pencil and watercolor titled: Influences, 1904 by Henry John Stock takes me to the place of fantasy. 
This is LeGouter (The Snack), 1885 by Jules Breton and is a most cute and simple little oil. It was included in a petite section that had more to do with common people (people-ie); okay, actual French peasants. Hey, this truly gives off an Impressionist vibration or perhaps a Pissarro vibe. The colors are vaguer and more smudgy! Oh, a principle vein of this show is the depiction of the human body, both male and female. This is idle, bucolic fodder, but lovely nonetheless. Joseph Bail`s Un letter de son pere, 1921 was adjacent, and seems to render the struggle over Algiers in the background, a topic that has captivated me over the past year.
Jean-Leon Gerome probably has the most important pieces to the history of art in the exhibition. He was the most literal practitioner of Academy values. Le Travail du marbre or L`Artiste sculptant Tanagra, 1890 (below) shows his sterile use of color, a very stiff marble, and a self-portrait of the bland artist practicing his trade. No wonder Courbet, Degas, Renoir, and Monet were down on his case. His paintings project photographic precision, and were the popular gems of their day, but now are objects of contempt for the apparent suppression of feeling or obvious lack of naturalism. You feel nothing when you stare at his work! You sense that everything has been arranged to hide something else that may be important.
Orientialism played a major role in much of the academic art that is included in this amazing exhibition of the Dahesh Museum. This trend was especially present in the work of Lawrence Alma Tadema with his piece Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh`s Granaries, 1874. The detail is particular enough that you feel as if you were actually with the granary keeper, although this happened more than 3000 years ago. Aye, I gazed at this one quite a while in awe! Too, look at The Egyptian Chess Player, 1865 on this link to see a similar work to the one that I saw by Lawrence Alma Tadema. Some of the aspects of Orientalism, albeit negative, were to portray the orient as exotic and even erotic, with harems available for the male hierarchies` pleasure. This was all propaganda on the part of the French government and had an obvious imperialist and even rascist component to it. You may want to probe the issue of Orientalism a little further, because it is a very interesting phenomenon. Look at the Women of Algiers carefully on this Wiki page! One other artist that reflected this trend was Henri Regnault and his work A Toreador, 1869 that shows a Spaniard with fulsome swaggart as a bullfighter. There is something very staged about some of these works? Yea, there seems to be a lack of sincerity to many of these paintings.
Jules Dalou (1838-1902) had two bronzes to view, one was the Bather, 1901 and the other was The Punishment, around 1885, and I detected some influence from Degas on the Bather. Dalou was involved in the Paris Commune of 1871, and had to flee from Paris after the mini-revolution collapsed. More baroque in style were two bronzes by Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875) from Paris. Lion and Serpent, 1833 was luxurious and could adorn my condo with domestic panache! Again, I could detect the safe qualities of his work, calling to mind the Ecole des Beaux-Arts or the fluffy grandeur of Academic Art. Be sure to look at The Birth of Venus on the Wiki page, because that one was in the show. It is actually a copy of Alexandre Cabanel by Adolphe Jourdan and has the pillowy splendour of Versailles under Louis XIV, but was done in 1864.
The thing that I take away from this show, is that the Impressionist break from the Academy wasn`t as drastic as it was claimed to be by Art History teachers, who I got my ideas from early on. Orientalism, for example, continued on with say Renoir. Yes, there were many changes in reaction to the stiff and somewhat unnatural predilections, of say genre painting. The amazing thing is that I have never seen in person what they were so stirred up about. Now I know when I stare at Gerome, what it is all about!
Just a small plug for my piece on "The Seventh Seal". It is featured on News Blaze and seems to be getting read quite a bit. Also, my Best of 2006 can still be read there. I had emailed Judyth Piazza back in February to read my review of "The Quiet", because she had reviewed it and it was on Rotten Tomatoes. We must have been the only people who saw that quirky film. She manages News Blaze along with the Student Operated Press, and they give opportunity to novice writers to get published on the Internet. I am very thankful for this outlet.
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