William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 - August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter. A student at the Academie Julian in Paris, his realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were exhibited in the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire working life. Although he fell into disregard, due perhaps to his staunch opposition to the Impressionists, there is a new appreciation for his work. In his lifetime, Bouguereau painted eight hundred and twenty-six paintings.

In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters on earth. In 1900, his contemporaries Degas and Monet reportedly named him as most likely to be remembered as the greatest 19th century French painter by the year 2000, according to chairman Fred Ross of the Art Renewal Center. His works were eagerly bought, at high prices, especially by American millionaires. After about 1920, Bouguereau fell into a curious disrepute. Some assert this may have been consciously engineered by the new "art expert establishment", who resented his former opposition to new developments in painting, but it is likely that more profound societal factors were instrumental to this enormous shift in taste and sensibility. For decades, his name was not even mentioned in encyclopedias. Today, over one hundred museums throughout the world exhibit his works.

At a rather advanced age, Bouguereau married for the second time, with fellow artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, one of his pupils. He also used his influence to open many French art institutions to women for the first time, including the Academie Francais.

Small sampling of works

La Danse 1850
Tobias Saying Good-Bye to his Father 1860
Dusk 1863
Le Printemps (The Return of Spring) 1866
Alone in the World (Latest 1867)
The Knitting Girl 1869
The First Kiss 1873
Nymphs and Satyr 1873
Cupidon 1875
The Birth of Venus 1879
Evening Mood 1882
The Nut Gatherers 1882
Crown of Flowers 1884
The Shepherdess 1889
The Little Shepherdess 1891
Invading Cupid's Realm 1892
L'innocence 1893
The Abduction of Psyche 1895
The Young Shepherdess 1895
The Virgin With Angels 1900
Young Priestess 1902
The Madonna of the Roses 1903

Quotes

"One has to seek Beauty and Truth, Sir! As I always say to my pupils, you have to work to the finish. There's only one kind of painting. It is the painting that presents the eye with perfection, the kind of beautiful and impeccable enamel you find in Veronese and Titian." -- William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1895

The paintings are the excellent portrayal of the events and scenes that we see around us. The painters are the best cameras of the world. They reproduce many different types of pictures. They even draw imaginary pictures that do not exist in this world. We tend to use both thinned oil paints and dense oil paints. Masterpieces can be dyed more than once, but each time it may be different from the existing paintings.h

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