Pretty in paint

It's not often that a Monet plays second fiddle to a Cabanel, or that a Rubens is sequestered in a back gallery while a Leighton commands center stage. In the hierarchy of display space in a museum, the big names are hung in the big galleries and the paintings that are considered pivotal are put in prime positions, so that what a guest sees has been edited to show the museum's breadth and depth. Its collections are refined, it hopes, to a consistent caliber of works and artists. This is not always the case, though, with personal collections, where the buyer acquires art according to his or her own tastes.

The new show at the Meadows Museum of Art in Dallas is an excellent case in point. "From Cranach to Monet: Highlights of the Pérez Simón Collection" is an exhibit of the tastes of Juan Antonio Pérez Simón, a Mexican businessman (tobacco and telecommunications), and his wife, Josefina. The collection, which the couple began in the 1970s, now totals more than 1,000 pieces, of which only a small portion are in this show -- 57 paintings from 46 artists. The sculptures and 20th-century artworks were left at home, providing the opportunity for an additional Pérez Simón show in the future. Meadows director Mark Roglan says it's a possibility.

Juan Antonio Pérez Simón has put together an absolutely amazing catalog that has historical breadth and depth, as the title of the show suggests, with two 15th-century Cranachs and two 19th-century Monets, as well as works by Rubens, Tiepolo, Goya, Corot, van Gogh, Cezanne, Pissarro and a host of other familiar names from the art-museum all-star list. The Monets are appropriately atmospheric, the van Gogh an excitable frenzy of color, the Renoir a typical Breck girl in a starched white pinafore. But all these have been relegated to a side gallery. There's nothing wrong with them -- they're perfectly adequate examples of their kind, but better Monets have visited the Kimbell Art Museum, and a trove of van Goghs will go on display at the Dallas Museum of Art in a few weeks.

What Pérez Simón has that most museums don't (or won't) show in such abundance are highly theatrical pieces by pre-Raphaelites, classicists and academicians -- Millais, Rossetti, Leighton and Cabanel. These 19th-century painters are often treated like embarrassing relatives, rarely seated at the grownups table. They lack gravitas. Their work is considered not pivotal but pretty -- often exquisitely beautiful and usually luminous, but backward looking. Their dramatic depictions of literary scenes or Greek and Arthurian legends were eclipsed by the atmospheric, light-imbued works of the impressionists, and these artists fell into stodgy disfavor. Their works were sold off by museums and collectors at fire-sale prices during the early- to mid-20th century.

As an individual who doesn't have to defend selections to a board or their avenues of scholarship to a curatorial staff, Pérez Simón is free to buy exactly what he likes. And he likes pretty painted women, of which there is an abundance here. Even the pieces by Cranach "(Charity"), Rubens ("Virgin With Blessing Child") and Goya ("Portrait of Doña Maria Teresa de Vallabriga") are of lovely women with opalescent skin. Sure, there are Pissarro landscapes (glorious color) and Jan van Os still lifes (every petal detailed) and a regal portrait by Van Dyke (so above us all in size and attitude), but it is the plethora of pulchritude that provides the real pleasure of this show.

While the aim of these works was to illustrate perfection, in person and place, there is often a back story that delivers a dose of ugly underbelly. "The Roses of Heliogabalus" (1888) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema depicts the Roman emperor Heliogabalus' hosting skills. The extremely sadistic ruler, eventually ousted by the Praetorian Guard, sits on a dais with his coterie of favorites, while his guests are smothered in a shower of rose petals.

Literally, smothered -- he punk'd them with extreme prejudice.

On the other extreme are beauties for the sake of beauty, such as"An Earthly Paradise" (1891), also by Alma-Tadema, showing a tender moment between mother and child. The scene was inspired by a Lord Byron verse from "The Dying Gladiator" that tells of a soldier's final thoughts as he dies in a faraway land.

"Greek Girl Picking Up Pebbles by the Sea" (1871) by Lord Frederic Leighton was a departure for this artist. It was the first time he painted a scene that had no historical reference other than the clothing worn by the four lovely lasses who are scavenging for shells as offshore winds whip at their diaphanous dresses.

William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) was famous for painting nude women. His style was often imitated by watercolorists who supplied early skin magazines with their "fine art" element.

"The Lost Pleiad" (1884), once owned by William Randolph Hearst, looks so very familiar that if the canvas were to show staple holes across the lovely's midsection it would not be surprising.

Alexandre Cabanel (1824-1889) was also known for his way with women. In "Cleopatra Trying Out the Poison on Prisoners Sentenced to Death" (date unknown), a recumbent Cleopatra, shown in Nefertiti-like profile, looks on languidly as her guards carry off the dead or dying who are writhing in agony. She is posed prettily in a topless toga. If there is any historical accuracy, it is subsumed by the sensational display of gratuitous nudity.

Note to local school boards: There is a good deal of nudity and occasional breast-feeding in the show, which might give art teachers pause, considering the recent stir surrounding a Frisco school field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. This is too bad, as this show presents a topical reference point. Last week, researchers scanning Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" reported seeing evidence in the famous painting of a sheer veil of the kind once worn by pregnant women or new mothers. "Charity", by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), which shows a mother breastfeeding her infant, reveals the faintest hint of a sheer veil encircling her body. The use of the veil certainly couldn't have been for modesty's sake, as it hides nothing. Perhaps it was an accessory of honor denoting maternal status, the historical version of a 20-pound diaper bag. The veil is much prettier than a nursing bra, and, like so many of the works in this show, the fantasy is much lovelier than fact.

(Gaile Robinson, grobinsonstar-telegram.com. Visit the Star-Telegram's online service at www.star-telegram.com.)

WITH BC-ART REVIEW PEREZ SIMON-TEX

From Cranach to Monet: Highlights of the Pérez Simón Collection

-- Through Dec.31

-- Meadows Museum on the Southern Methodist University campus

-- 5900 Bishop Blvd., Dallas

-- $8, free on Thursday evenings

-- 214-768-2516; www.meadowsmuseumdallas.org

c.2006 Fort Worth Star-Telegram