Flora und Zephyr

Bouguereau painted this in 1875, one year after a scrappy group across town held the first Impressionist show and got laughed at. He stood on the other side entirely, the reigning star of the official Salon, rich, decorated, his surfaces polished until no brushstroke shows. The round canvas holds Zephyr, the Greek god of the west wind, with pale butterfly wings, leaning in to kiss the flower nymph Chloris, whom the Romans called Flora, floating her upward on his own breeze. Everything the Impressionists were throwing out, the smooth finish, the mythological cover for two nudes, the flawless idealized skin, is here at its most confident. A thin blue veil and a fall of red drapery are all that the story allows either figure to wear.