William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 'Fraternal Love,' 1851.PHOTO: MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTONĪ surprise is the presence of portraits, whose formal and expressive restraint-the influence of the artist’s idol Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867)-counters the Bouguereau stereotype. As such it is a fascinating exploration of a bygone moment in the history of American taste, elucidated every step of the way by excellent wall texts. This one challenges it, asking us to see Bouguereau through the eyes of an age when he was lionized and Impressionism was dismissed as “French freedom.” Beyond that, it offers a window into the ways works of art function in society, and how a savvy artist can profit from knowing his market. Most shows confirm our taste-think Claude Monet or Andy Warhol. This is an important and ambitious exhibition, fruit of the kind of fresh, original idea more institutions should aspire to. (where the show goes next, before its final stop at the San Diego Museum of Art), have assembled more than 40 canvases to ask: Why?

So co-curators Tanya Paul, from the Milwaukee Art Museum, and Stanton Thomas, formerly of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tenn. No Gilded Age collector or museum could be taken seriously without owning one. Then why mount one now? Because it turns out that between the late 1860s and early 1900s-until, that is, Impressionism caught on over here-Bouguereau was the most popular artist in America. There hasn’t been a major Bouguereau show on this side of the Atlantic since the 1980s. Both Bouguereau’s subjects and his treatment of them, cloyingly sentimental or coyly erotic, ensured that his name became a byword for everything the Impressionists, with their loosely executed paintings of everyday life, reacted against. His meticulously rendered-nary a brushstroke in sight-and idealized images of comely country lasses, doe-eyed street urchins and pulchritudinous nymphs defined French 19th-century academic art.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) is the artist everyone loves to hate. At the end of the 19th century, William-Adolphe Bouguereau was the most popular painter in the United States.

Bouguereau and America by Tanya Paul