LA VIÈRGE AUX ANGES

This painting by Bouguereau, from 1881, is owned by the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, just over the hill from Hollywood.  In 2005 it went up to the Getty Museum in Santa Monica on an extended loan in return for restoration, which primarily involved removing a coat of varnish that had yellowed, muting the original colors.  The scan above records the restored work and comes by way of the always amazing Art Renewal Center.

I'm not sure whether or not the painting has gone back to Forest Lawn, but if you live in the Los Angeles area you're within striking distance of it, either way.  If I lived in the Los Angeles area, I go see it immediately.

It's said that you either worship Bouguereau or you despise him — folks on either end of the spectrum tend to be a bit dogmatic on the subject.  Anti-Modernists are inclined to place him in the Pantheon of the old masters, which seems extreme.  I think Bouguereau is a great painter of the second or third rank, assuming, for example, that Jan Van Eyck is a painter of the first rank.  Anti-Victorians are inclined to dismiss him out of hand as the embodiment of kitsch, which I think is even sillier.

The important thing is that his works are wonderful, in a very odd and original way.  You can enjoy them immensely without worshiping them and you can recognize their limitations without despising them.