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Little did he know that when Fred Ross and his wife Sherry made their annual autumn trek to New England in 1977 he would have a life-changing experience. The Epoch Times recently spoke with Mr. Ross about the aesthetics of 19th century masters, modern art and fine art standards that were almost lost during the last part of the 20th century.
A New England autumn is a most beautiful time and, for Fred Ross, started a life-long quest. A friend suggested that they see a collection of 30 Renoirs at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. While there, Fred wandered into a large hall. Directly before him hung a huge canvas depicting a mythical scene of water nymphs playfully pulling an unwilling satyr into the water. He was transfixed. It was "full of energy, of joy and fun, so alive. There was such atmosphere, such a powerful image. It just grabbed me by the neck as I stood riveted." For a full fifteen minutes, Ross could not pull himself away. "I just sat there taking it in. It was the purest aesthetic experience."
With a Masters in Art Education from Columbia, Fred Ross had a good idea of art's luminaries. Yet he had never heard of the artist who had painted this masterpiece. And the date was very strange—1873. As far as he knew, that was the beginning of Impressionism. "I didn't know anybody knew how to paint like this in 1873. I thought the impressionists were the best that anybody could do."
And so began his quest to acquire more paintings by the artist he had never heard of before—William Bouguereau. He and his wife had been buying old master etchings at the Parke Bernet auction house (later bought by Sotheby's). He inquired if they sold paintings by Bouguereau. As fate would have it, Ross learned that three Bouguereau's were up for auction the very next Friday. A series of serendipitous events brought him to the auction floor just in time to bid on Bouguereau's "Les Enfant Endor Mis" which he bought for $4000.
Fred then started to research William Bouguereau, whom he discovered had been President of the Paris Salon and had been collected by the most influential persons of the era. He learned that this master artist was wiped from the history of art by apologists of a new era, just as Rembrandt was denigrated for almost 100 years after his death. Icons of modern art—Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse and de Kooning, among others—denied a whole generation the pleasure of enjoying great art. "Cézanne collapsed the landscape, Matisse flattened our homes and our families, and Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning placed it all in a blender and splattered it against the wall." He says that Modernism "basically became totally enraptured with the idea of destroying and breaking down what came before."
The break with artistic traditions of the past was caused by three 20th century catastrophes—the two world wars and the Great Depression. He says that historians and intellectuals were looking for someone to blame and they started blaming the Old Order. "And the old order was everyone who ran the world before these tragedies. They (Modernists) rejected everything out of hand of the Old Order." The standard for great art then became novelty, not necessarily skill and talent. "Anything that pointed to breaking the rules was elevated automatically, just because they broke the rules. It was the act of destruction that was celebrated."
Ross points out that institutions of higher learning did not have art departments when this trend began. Anyone who wanted to be an artist or study art enrolled in art academies. "The colleges started setting up art departments after the modernists were in control." So a whole generation of artists could not learn the standards of drawing and painting from those who wanted to negate the traditions of the past. Previously, Mr. Ross says that all the great painters of the past were taught by prior masters in a seamless continuum. Teaching skills from "master to apprentice was thrown out by modern art."
Ross says that "art is supposed to communicate the most powerful emotions of what it means to be human, or how hard it is to face death. Literature and theater are about the same thing. This is common sense. This is the truth. This is why people love art. When you take out universally recognized elements, you take out the ability to communicate."
Fred Ross is Chairman of the Art Renewal Center (www.artrenewal.org) , and has been published or interviewed in the American Arts Quarterly, the California Art Club, Forbes Magazine, Artnews, New Jersey Monthly, the Victorian Society in America, and the Classical Realist Journal. He has been a featured speaker at Sotheby's, the Dahesh Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and University of Memphis. He holds a Master's in Art Education from Columbia University, and along with his wife Sherry owns one of the foremost collections of 19th Century European paintings. The Epoch Times will publish his speech at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in future editions.
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