I took Claudia and Hailey around the modern painting section (not to be confused with the contemporary art section) of the Met. I guess I was trying to give them a tour, but all I really did was art-gasm about EVERYTHING. I love this stuff.
The Mada Primavesi! She's not spectacular, but she's like an old friend. We've been through a lot together. Not the greatest painting in the world by any means. Sometimes, though, in a huge gallery full of magnificent masterpieces, you identify with the work you feel is at your own level. I've done a couple copies of this painting. They were simple, fun, and an ego boost.I also did a copy of this painting! Hooray! This is Olympia by Edouard Manet. Remember when I was talking about how Manet and the Impressionists were bumping heads with Cabanel and other more traditional painters in the 1870's? Here's a certain painting that caused a scandal in Paris.
It seems pretty chaste, but notice the details. Here Manet has posed his model, who was a well-known prostitute in paris at the time, looking straight at the viewer. She is defiant, confident, and what's more, she's wearing accessories! Enhancing her nudity, turning this painting of a classical nude (Olympia) into a provocative naked woman. Manet's painting style was very flat, simple, and not in keeping with the super-rendering, super-soft style that was more in style, like this painting below of the Birth of Venus. People called his painting style grotesque, uneducated, and boring. Manet only painted what he saw, without trying to super-emphasize forms. He considered it true painting.
OK, so tell me, crazy Paris art people, what about this painting is less pornographic than Manet's painting? A completely nude woman, writhing in the ocean waves, creepy cherubs flyin all over everywhere. In short, time reveals all.
Here is a particularly beautiful Renoir that we saw. His composition, the attention to detail and his overall handling of the space is superb. I love the rug going back into space.
The Organ Rehearsal by Henry Lerolle. Great contrast, scale, light, space.
Toulouse-Lautrec, who painted like he was drawing in pastel. Up close, there are so many colored in her skin. So much loving detail in every mark, and yet still loose, full of life.
Voss noted this painting as a great example of simplifying your shadows and diversifying your highlights. Up close, this and many of Sergeant's paintings are just large, simple brushstrokes. 
But from far away, you see he's perfectly captured the shapes. He sees his models like shapes, and, like a calligrapher from China, captures them in one brush stroke. can you do the same? Answer: Yes.
Van Gogh, so fabulous. That deep dark hue in the background in a brilliant blue, mixed with brown probably. Talk about not getting muddy with color.
Finally, Bouguereau, who I couldn't actually find in the Met this time. They have some of his stuff. Basically no one talks about this guy with young painting students, because no one wants students to be painting like this. He is a grandfather of airbrushing, a ridiculously successful painter who painted only this pretty, frilly, mystical, classical pictures. They're beautifully painted, to be sure, but were created in the era when painting was starting to crave depth, meaning, and social commentary. This is the kind of painting the Impressionists and Post-impressionists were hellbent against. It's purely decorative and indulgent.
Go learn how to paint, and then once you've mastered it, come back and look at this guy's stuff. Because its pretty and frilly, but also really well done.
