What You See Is What You Paint

The man who painted this canvas was a super star of the French art establishment in the 19th century. He was automatically accepted by the Salon, the official and only mass exhibition of contemporary Parisian art in the 19th Century.

Monet was regularly rejected by the Salon jury, as was Renoir, Pissarro and all the other leading impressionist masters. The public and the critics were simply not ready for, what they perceived as, sketchy, multi coloured, unfinished canvases.

Monet's painting of a sunset over the Themes, was savaged by one art critic who ridiculed the painting's title, 'Impression Sunrise.' The term, 'Impressionist' was finally adopted by Monet and his friends and it is they who are now the art super stars and not, Bouguereau and his Neo Classical colleagues.

Personally, I think, Bouguereau and Monet were great painters. Both men were dedicated artists who painted what they saw, but interpreted what they saw in very different ways.

I’ve mixed up impressionist and Neo Classical paintings. The brillient Impressionist figure painer, Mary Cassatt alongside the equally brillient Neo Classical figure painter, Bouguereau. All these canvases were produced in the same period. Some accepted by the art establishment, some rejected. No prizes for guessing the accepted and rejected canvases.