Above: "Back Pose", "Face Pose" and "Profile Pose" by Georges Seurat, 1887, using the technique of pointillism, dabs of pure colour to make an overall impression.
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1 is "Liberty Enlightening the World" by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, 1889.
2 is "Pénélope" by Pierre-Jules Cavelier, 1849.
3 is "The Source" by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1856.
4 is "Excecution with Judgement by the Moor Kings of Grenada" by Henri Regnault, 1870.
5 and 6 is "The Death of Orpheus" by Émile Lévy, 1866.
7 is "Dante and Virgil" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1850. The painting depicts Dante and Virgil looking on as two damned souls are entwined in combat. One of the souls is
an alchemist and heretic named Capocchio. In this depiction Capocchio is being bitten on the neck by Gianni Schicchi who had used fraud to claim another man's inheritance.
Bouguereau did not like the reception this painting received - buyers found it too violent and angry, so he decided to paint more soothing and quite beautiful, well-crafted work.
8 is "The Birth of Venus" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1879. Bouguereau was an academic painter and traditionalist whose work was in great demand during his lifetime, but he
and other painters such as Alexandre Cabanelfell out of favour with the 20th century art establishment. When I first visited Musée d'Orsay in the 1990's, none of his works were
shown, but in the 2000's a few Bouguereau's were shown together in a side room, and the response was enthusiastic, and his and Cabanel's paintings are now on prominent display.
9 is "The Ball" by James Tissot, 1878.
10 "The Dance" by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, 1868, another version also displayed in the Opéra Garnier.
11 "Eighteen Hundred, Sixty and Eleven" by Paul Cabet, 1872, in remembrance of the violent end to the Paris Commune in May 1871.
12 "Young Girl in a Rose Robe" by Camille Corot, 1860.
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