The website Sam’s looking at here is the Art Renewal Center – a vast, labyrinthine repository of art with a special emphasis on 19th century academy art. The online “museum” is really amazing, with thousands of (high quality) images of work ranging from saccharine Victorian genre paintings to more ‘classy’ stuff like Lawrence Alma-Tadema and William Bouguereau. But the real fascination is the obscure artists whose reputations have since evaporated entirely, some of whom are wonderfully bizarre, but most of whom were probably considered second rate even then. It’s also worth browsing the articles and essays – especially those by ARC founder Fred Ross – such as The Great 20th Century Art Scam, Abstract Art is Not Abstract and Definitely Not Art, and the controversial Hockney Completely Refuted (a vitriolic attack on David Hockney’s theories on the use of optical aids by old masters). The ARC is a frenzied assault on “modern art” and a herculean attempt to reinstate the aesthetic values and ideology of the 19th century academies. In short, Fred Ross is determined to undo the last 100 years of art history – or die trying. It’s as charming for its quixotic nature as for its celebration of kitsch and its evangelical tone (at times Ross writes almost like Jack T. Chick). But above all, it’s an amazing online resource for anyone who, like me, adores these forgotten byways of art, or merely likes pretty pictures or Victorian softcore porn…

The particular painting that dominates this page is John William Godward‘s A Quiet Pet (for some odd reason, I can only find a detail of it on ARC at the moment – though I’m sure they used to have the whole thing).

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