1891, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Broken Pitcher -- Legion of Honor (San Francisco)
From the museum label: Well known as a defender of conservative academic values in nineteenth-century art, Bouguereau rose to prominence in the 1850s and became an influential teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. This painting exhibits many stylistic qualities central to the academic teaching of the time, including a careful description of forms, with clear contours and smooth three-dimensional modeling, and an idealized approach to the human figure. The artist drew on a fashion for peasant or rural imagery, investing it with sexual allusion—the cracked pitcher perhaps signifies lost virginity or love abandoned.
1891, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Broken Pitcher -- Legion of Honor (San Francisco)
From the museum label: Well known as a defender of conservative academic values in nineteenth-century art, Bouguereau rose to prominence in the 1850s and became an influential teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. This painting exhibits many stylistic qualities central to the academic teaching of the time, including a careful description of forms, with clear contours and smooth three-dimensional modeling, and an idealized approach to the human figure. The artist drew on a fashion for peasant or rural imagery, investing it with sexual allusion—the cracked pitcher perhaps signifies lost virginity or love abandoned.