たそがれ

Bouguereau painted this in 1882, at the height of a long career built on exactly this kind of polished, academic beauty, the sort of thing the young Impressionists were rebelling against at that very moment. A single female figure stands for twilight, her skin and drapery given that flawless porcelain finish he was famous for. It belongs to a set he made picturing the four times of day, with Dawn the same year, then Night, then Day. He showed it at the Paris Salon of 1882, the official exhibition that still crowned reputations in France. Today it hangs a long way from Paris, in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.