WOMAN IN ART
The three pictures cited from the same artist present woman in three ages of world development, Greek, Hebrew, and American.
William Adolph Bouguereau (1825-1905) has been called preeminently the painter of flesh. Said Benvenuto Cellini, "The important point in art is to create the nude figure," and more than one writer has attributed the attainment of this high art to Bougereau. Flesh is full of colors, absorbed light, and invisible moisture. Many can paint flesh color, but that is as far as they can get. "That substance, unctuous, white, uniform, without being pale or faded, it is this mingling of red and blue, of imperceptible moisture, which forms the despair of the colorist."
Bouguereau received his early instruction, as did Cabanel, at the College at Pons, and in both pupils drawing was manifestly thorough.
It was at the Columbian Fair at Chicago in 1893 that the American public, at least, had the opportunity of knowing the exquisite work of this master. The portrait of M. Carnot, at that time President of France, occupied a prominent space in the French Department of that spacious art building of magnificent Greek architecture. On one side the portrait (by Cabanel) was a masterpiece by Bougereau, exquisitely depicting "Whisperings of Love." Against a refined background of woodland and a suggestion of sculptured marble, a slightly veiled figure was listening to whisperings of a bevy of ethereal little loves. The radiating of light and life from the unctuous quality of flesh reached the most distant observer in the spacious gallery. The luminousness and delicacy of the ensemble seemed heightened in effect by the deep richness of tones and dignity of pose portrayed in the splendid portrait.
Nature alone, it seems, formed the environment for "The Bathers," as they have stepped from the tremulous, blue-green sea to the sand and rocks of the friendly shore. The two bathers form one of the most beautiful and perfect paintings of the nude we have.
Many charms have been bestowed upon womanhood by nature, and it is within her power to add many more; the cultivation of the spirit, mind, and soul, purity and unselfishness, reflect the inner thought-life, and such beauty radiates like sunshine.
A third painter of our group portrays a life-long influence of one particular factor of feminine loveliness. We are all more or less familiar with the luxurious red hair that Jean Jacque Henner loved to paint. The effect of that hair on the mind of the artist made him play all his painted nocturnes to the dominant red hair. His first success came when a young man. He was a born draftsman
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