The Great 20th Century Art Scam
Bret Ludwig
How the ugly and bizzare replaced the beautiful and noble as standards
of taste
For over 90 years, there has been a concerted and relentless effort to
disparage, denigrate and obliterate the reputations, names, and
brilliance of the academic artistic masters of the late 19th Century.
Fueled by a cooperative press, the ruling powers have held the global
art establishment in an iron grip. Equally, there was a successful
effort to remove from our institutions of higher learning all the
methods, techniques and knowledge of how to train skilled artists. Five
centuries of critical data were nearly thrown into the trash. It is
incredible how close Modernist theory, backed by an enormous network of
powerful and influential art dealers, came to acquiring complete
control over thousands of museums, university art departments and
journalistic art criticism.
Against all odds, and in the face of the worst kind of ridicule and
personal and editorial assault, only a small handful of well-trained
artists managed to stay true to their beliefs. Then, like the heroes
who protected a few rare manuscripts during inquisitional book-burnings
of the past, these 20th Century art world heroes managed to protect and
preserve the core technical knowledge of western art. Somehow, they
succeeded to train a few dozen determined disciples. Today, many of
those former students, have established their own schools or ateliers,
and are currently training many hundreds more. This movement is now
expanding exponentially. They are regaining the traditions of the past,
so that art may once again move forward on a solid footing. We are
committed in every way possible to record, preserve and perpetuate this
priceless knowledge.
If you studied art history anytime between 1945 and 1980, you were told
that there were great old masters that existed from the early
Renaissance to the time of David, Constable and Turner in the early
1800's. Then you were taught about Corot and Courbet and the
Pre-Impressionists and then finally the Impressionists themselves who
led the way into Modernism. Most of the period from 1850 to 1910 was
described as a terrible cesspool of official art where petty academic
artists painted inane silly paintings that cared only for technique,
that were devoid of emotion and who didn't recognize the genius of the
Impressionists. Maybe one paragraph about that long was all you read.
Possibly they mentioned the leaders of this rogue's gallery and so they
might have said once the names of Meissonier, Bouguereau, Cabanel,
Gérôme, Alma-Tadema, Lord Leighton or Burne-Jones, and never showed
you any of their works. If they did show anything it was always a bad
example. I think we all know that Rembrandt and Raphael painted some
mediocre works too.
The period of art history from 1850 through 1910 was thrown into near
obscurity. But it was precisely this period that produced some of the
greatest art and artists in the history of humanity. I will show you
fine examples of that art, why it is amongst the world's greatest, and
explain just what happened to cause its near total annihilation from
the art history that has been taught in most of the 20th Century. It
was a period when 500 years of accumulated knowledge, stretching from
the early Renaissance to the present, reached its absolute peak of
development. It was a time when the techniques and knowledge of how to
produce great art, and pass down that knowledge to the next generation,
was at its absolute zenith. It was a time when the work and sweat of 30
prior generations of devoted artists achieved a codification of
methods, standards and techniques, which produced the very pinnacle of
what Traditional Realist art could achieve.
In the last half of the 19th century there were literally scores of
great art ateliers and academies turning out thousands of highly
trained and accomplished artists, painting in dozens of different
styles and on countless different subjects. The best of the best of
these were clearly amongst the greatest geniuses in western
civilization. It is an incredible irony that this greatest of all
periods should have become the most denigrated. Men like William
Adolphe Bouguereau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jules Breton, Jules
Bastien-Lepage, Jean Francois Millet, Jehan Georges Vibert, Edward
Burne Jones, Fredrick Lord Leighton, Edward Poynter, Sir Lawrence
Alma-Tadema, John William Waterhouse, Leon L'hermitte, Sir Frank
Dicksee, Sir John Everett Millais, Alexander Cabanel and Jules
Lefebvre. These names, many of which may be new to you, were as well
known by the cogniscenti in the 1890's as Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse,
DeKooning, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol are known today. They were
household names. People would line up sometimes for blocks to see
exhibitions of their works. The rich, and the poor, the humble and the
famous alike adored their work.
Men like Henry James, Frederic Chopin and Charles Dickens idolized
these academic masters. Could such men that we all agree were beyond
question great artistic geniuses themselves have had such bad taste so
as to idolize art that today's ideologues would have us believe was so
bad?
Bouguereau is one of the chief villains in tales told by modern
historians. I shall especially refer to him in this discussion, for he
is being increasingly revered by thousands of scholars, collectors,
curators and art lovers as one of history's all time greats, ultimately
deserving to stand shoulder to shoulder with Leonardo, Caravaggio and
Rembrandt.
But just as Rembrandt was relegated to near oblivion for over 100 years
after his death, so too was this to be Bouguereau's fate. One of the
most famous stories about Rembrandt concerns his painting Night Watch.
After his death, no one wanted it. Finally, a gymnasium agreed to hang
it on their back wall if the top foot of the painting would be cut off
so it would fit. Today, this artistic masterpiece is known only in a
mutilated form.
The overwhelming preponderance of the art of the 19th C. in Europe and
in America has been described as Academic. This term is used to be
dismissive or disparaging as petty and uninspired. In truth, however,
Academic more accurately means a dedication to standards of excellence
both in training and in artistic execution, and a dedication to
learning with great discipline and devotion, to the methods,
developments and breakthroughs of prior generations. The idea is to
build on the past accomplishments of art as we go into the future by
knowing thoroughly those accomplishments of the past. This is the true
meaning of academic.