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The second half of the 19th century in France not only produced Bouguereau and the other academic painters it also produced Millet, Daumier, Courbet as well as Degas, Monet, Cezanne etc and I do not judge Bouguereau in isolation from what those others were doing and incidentally what they thought of his work.
Degas probably coined the term 'Bouguereaute' by which he meant art based on 'slick and artificial surfaces' and so it was his contempories that treated his beautifully rendered but insipid sentimentality with contempt, not only modern critics.
Courbet famously said he "didn't paint angels because he never saw one" and he touched on the heart of the matter. Realism is not about technique - it is about the truth and honesty in rendering the world around us. Bourguereau idealised whereas Courbet, Degas and Manet gave us truth. You give me a portrait of a pretty woman and I give you a woman squatting over her tin bath; you give me Satyrs and angels and I give you a boating party and peasants breaking stones.
Great technique does not stop art from being insipid neither is it sufficient to produce great art. Michelangelo had many a dispute with his patrons over his art as later did Klimt but I rather suspect this was not the case with Bouguereau. He was producing Kitsch art for a French bourgeousie keen on aping the 'ancien regime' - Courbet, Degas and Monet saw it and saw with clarity the sterility of this.
One of the more amusing quotes I have read was on the rather ridiculous 'Art renewal' site in which they quote Degas and Monet as saying that in the year 2000 Bouguereau would be remembered as the greatest of 19th C French artists and some here agree failing to realise that the quote was clearly meant to be.... ironic and a ****ing but realistic appraisal of the vulgarity of future public taste.
Art must be judged not in isolation but in relationship to its time and place and considering what else was being offered by French artists at the same time and place Bouguereau is very thin if elegent consumme to their meaty and hearty fair.
Art is not about technique. Great art does not require great technique nor does Kitsch art require its absence. Technique helps tell whatever story we want to tell but it can never replace it.
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