Alzofon Art Institute

Museum Notes

Bouguereau at the Haggin in Stockton, California

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Haggin, Stockton

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Transcript from notebook

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"All parts of background (except grassy spot surrounding reclining foreground figure) darker than shade on figures, but hair darker and redder than background.

"For beams of light, there is a hazy shift lighter, and slight bit more emphasis on green -- Most of background is value 9, (+) or (- ) 1.



"Figures have hairline-thin line (made by omission) around them -- sometimes red brown, sometimes raw umber + white -- even in lights (huh? Lights?).

"Paint application -- wet, thin taps and slurried veils on figure. Lights in most lit figure: value 1 - 2; low light on same figure, 3."

Afternotes:

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How the heck did he get that
delicate beam of light into the paint?

This painting has a unique and mysterious effect. The backdrop grotto is extremely dark, not black, but brownish. There are three delicate beams of light, seeming to illuminate a lightly dusted atmosphere in a dark setting. For all the world, it looks like the light is coming from the room, not the painting.

Bouguereau used a trick whereby he suppressed the greens unless a beam happened to pass before the plants behind -- plants not struck by beam itself, but in the deep dark background. Generally, only where a beam crossed, would he add green. The value, including the greens, in the beam zone is only a half step lighter than the non-beam zones of the backdrop.

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Below is a diagram of this subtle effect:

What do you think? does it look like a delicate, dusty beam of light?

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More Notes:

Early Titian

Michelangelo Sculpture

First Day in Rome,
or...Travel Is a Painful Ordeal

Rubens

Leonardo da Vinci

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You are within the museum notes of the Idea Library

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Also in the Idea Library:

Explanatory Comments

Study Collection

Proposals

This page created: October 22, 1996