Let My People Go. To The Blanton.

Ladies, gentlemen: please examine Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries, at left. Like any good Tut's tomb + art nouveau mashup, the painting emotes a quiet, anachronistic strangeness.

Currently on display at The Blanton, this piece sits alongside other treasures -- both canvases and sculpture -- on loan from the Dahesh Museum in New York City. They're featured in the Blanton's new show, A Century of Grace, which honors interpretations of the human form in 19th century European art (with a nod to Paris, in particular).

Considering the period and the region, you might expect to find a few impressionist paintings in the mix. Non. A Century of Grace exclusively casts the spotlight on works by those who struggled to hold up "traditional" artistic ideals in the face of pastel water lilies. Artists like Bouguereau, Gérôme and Pradier created objects that, as the Blanton puts it, are "...grand in scale, rich in detail and highly finished." In other words: those guys went for broke, and the results remain sumptuous.

A Century of Grace
Blanton Museum of Art
May 18 - August 5, 2007
$5 admission, free on Thursdays
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Image: Lawrence Alma Tadema. Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries, 1874.