The Broken Pitcher by William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1891
When I was growing up, the walls of our house were decorated with prints of paintings by famous artists--The Flower Seller by Diego Rivera, Bridge at Arles by Vincent Van Gogh, Snowy Egret by John James Audubon. My father loved art and after he retired from his career as a social worker, he became a docent at the Legion of Honor art museum in San Francisco. One day he brought home a poster of one of the paintings in the museum's permanent collection, The Broken Pitcher by William Adolphe Bouguereau. We had no more room in the house for art, so we hung the poster in the garage over the washing machine, where it stayed for many years. With every load of laundry, I gazed into the young girl's sad eyes, wondering what her life might have been.
Paintings and silver tea set at Legion of Honor museum.
On a recent visit to the museum I had the chance to see the original painting, hung in a room with other 19th century paintings along with decorative arts of the time, and it brought back memories of my father's years as a docent. One of his roles was to lead tours, pointing out interesting facts about the artists and paintings. Here is what he had to say about The Broken Pitcher.
Gallery talk by Lester Scheaffer
If this gallery were a salon of the late 19th century, you would see many more paintings like the one before us, “The Broken Pitcher,” thanthe ones that hang in this gallery. There were two reasons—it conformed with the standards of The French Academy, and it was pleasing to a great many buyers of art.
This painting by Adolphe Bouguereau was done in 1891. While the hand of The Academy was not quite as firm in the 1890s as it was in the third quarter of the century, the basic criteria for acceptable painting was still present—restraint, simplicity, and balance. Experimental paintings were flatly rejected, the artist reviled. This is what happened to the Impressionists. Patrons from the middle class, the bourgeoisie, were attracted to paintings that were 1. ostentatious; 2. That told a story; 3. That did not violate their sense of morality; and 4. That these characteristics show on the surface—that is, nothing too subtle.
This painting is certainly balanced and it is centered. It ha a bit of the classical feeling, reminders of the old days, with the architectural design of the stone well, a suggestion of classical ruins in the background, and above all, the orderliness of the composition. The composition is truly linear, no problem whatever in following the lines of the drawing. The subject matter is sentimental and moralistic. The broken pitcher symbolizes this young girl’s loss of virginity, about which she is perplexed and anxious—“What do I do now?”
Detail, The Broken Pitcher by Bouguereau.
Her big puppy dog eyes look out at us appealing for an answer. How could a viewer or a buyer not react favorably to a painting like this, at least the buyers of the 19th century.
One person who reacted in the opposite way to Bouguereau, according to a story, was Auguste Renoir, the Impressionist. On being fitted for a new pair of glasses to correct his myopia, he threw them on the floor crying, “My God, I see like Bouguereau!”
If one had asked Bouguereau how he felt about Renoir and his friends, he probably would have said, “The feeling is mutual.”
Notes: Bouguereau (1825-1905)–studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Prix de Rome 1850, great technical skill, slick painting but soft style, technically his paintings hold together, could paint any subject desired by the buying public, commercially successful in both Europe and the US.
At the Legion of Honor Art Museum, San Francisco, CA