Hello Miguel,How pleased I am that I fulfilled my promise to visit. These works of art are breathtaking in their execution. Here is an artist who not only mastered his art but shared his obvious love of women with his audience and who brought so much of their character out. A great artist not only manages to bring the thoughts and moods of his model to his viewer but has to be able to enable his model to present the mood and attitude that he wants to portray. Bouguereau is a true master of these things. A huge collection of delights and portrayed in a variety of ways that remind us of the great religious painters and show us that he was also not afraid to brighten his palette. I note how cleverly he changed his backgrounds, for example, in Rest in Harvest the subject is IN THE SETTING where as in the later In Rest the subject is placed in front of the landscape much in the manner of a studio photograph. I note that he makes definite decisions whenever he brings us a subject. By placing the subject in the landscape his resulting feel is very different from the way that his model dominates when he lightens and pushes his background back. We often forget the importance of shadows in visual art. In the impressionists world light and shade were very much part of the composition but in more naturalistic works like most of these we forget that if the shadows were to be overlooked the work would lose all depth. Shadows and highlights are very obvious in the folds of clothes and drapes and we tend to notice them but when we look at a pale skinned and well lit figure like in The Wave the subtle darks and tones are wonderful. I'm so glad that I called into your wonderful forum and read your conversations with Joyce. I do miss my visits and forums but I seem to have filled my time elsewhere since my computer failures. Now I have a new laptop life is fuller again. Roger
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