Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

(born Nov. 30, 1825, La Rochelle, Fr. — died Aug. 19, 1905, La Rochelle) French painter. He entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1846 and was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1850. On his return from Italy in 1854, he became a successful proponent of academic painting and was instrumental in the exclusion of the radical Impressionists from the official Salon. Working in a smooth, highly finished style, he painted sentimental religious works, coyly erotic nudes, allegorical scenes, and realistic portraits. In 1876 he was elected to the Academy of Fine Arts. His influence was felt widely, particularly in the U.S.

For more information on William-Adolphe Bouguereau, visit Britannica.com.

Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Art Encyclopedia: William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Top
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Art Encyclopedia

(b La Rochelle, 30 Nov 1825; d La Rochelle, 19 Aug 1905). French painter. From 1838 to 1841 he took drawing lessons from Louis Sage, a pupil of Ingres, while attending the coll?ge at Pons. In 1841 the family moved to Bordeaux where in 1842 his father allowed him to attend the Ecole Municipale de Dessin et de Peinture part-time, under Jean-Paul Alaux. In 1844 he won the first prize for figure painting, which confirmed his desire to become a painter. As there were insufficient family funds to send him straight to Paris he painted portraits of the local gentry from 1845 to 1846 to earn money. In 1846 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in the studio of Fran?ois-Edouard Picot. This was the beginning of the standard academic training of which he became so ardent a defender later in life. Such early works as Equality (1848; priv. col., see 1984-5 exh. cat., p. 141) reveal the technical proficiency he had attained even while still training. In 1850 he was awarded one of the two Premier Grand Prix de Rome for Zenobia Discovered by Shepherds on the Bank of the River Araxes (1850; Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.). In December 1850 he left for Rome where he remained at the Villa Medici until 1854, working under Victor Schnetz and Jean Alaux (1786-1864). During this period he made an extensive study of Giotto's work at Assisi and Padua and was also impressed by the works of other Renaissance masters and by Classical art. On his return to France he exhibited the Triumph of the Martyr (1853; Lun?ville, Mus. Lun?ville; see fig. 1) at the Salon of 1854. It depicted St Cecilia's body being carried to the catacombs, and its high finish, restrained colour and classical poses were to be constant features of his painting thereafter. All his works were executed in several stages involving an initial oil sketch followed by numerous pencil drawings taken from life. Though he generally restricted himself to classical, religious and genre subjects, he was commissioned by the state to paint Napoleon III Visiting the Flood Victims of Tarascon in 1856 (1856; Tarascon, H?tel de Ville), so applying his style to a contemporary historical scene. In 1859 he provided some of the decorations for the chapel of St Louis at Ste Clothilde church, Paris (in situ), where he worked under the supervision of Picot. The austere style of the scenes from the life of St Louis reflect Bouguereau's knowledge of early Italian Renaissance art.

See the Abbreviations for further details.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Adolphe William Bouguereau
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia - People
Bouguereau, Adolphe William (ädôlf', būgrō'), 1825-1905, French academic painter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1850 and became extremely popular during the 1860s and 70s. He is famous for his nudes and for his historical and religious paintings. His La Jeunesse et l'Amour is in the Louvre.
Wikipedia: William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Self-Portrait (1879)
Birth name William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Born November 30, 1825(1825-11-30)
La Rochelle, France
Died August 19, 1905 (aged 79)
La Rochelle, France
Nationality French
Field Painter
Movement Realism
Works The Birth of Venus
The Bohemian

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau (pronounced vill-yam boo-goh-roe) was a staunch traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the female human body. Although he created an idealized world, his almost photo-realistic style was popular with rich art patrons. He was very famous in his time but today his subject matter and technique receive relatively little attention compared to the popularity of the Impressionists.

Contents

Life and career

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, France on November 30, 1825, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. He seemed destined to join the family business but for the intervention of his uncle Eugène, a curate, who taught him classical and biblical subjects, and arranged for Bouguereau to go to high school. Bouguereau showed artistic talent early on and his father was convinced by a client to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, where he won first prize in figure painting for a depiction of Saint Roch. To earn extra money, he designed labels for jams and preserves.[1]

Through his uncle, Bouguereau was given a commission to paint portraits of parishioners, and when his aunt matched the sum he earned, Bouguereau went to Paris and became a student at the École des Beaux-Arts.[2] To supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology. He was admitted to the studio of François-Edouard Picot, where he studied painting in the academic style. Academic painting placed the highest status on historical and mythological subjects and Bouguereau won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1850, with his Zenobia Found by Shepherds on the Banks of the Araxes.[3] His reward was a stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, Italy, where in addition to formal lessons he was able to study first-hand the Renaissance artists and their masterpieces.

Bouguereau, completely in tune with the traditional Academic style, exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire working life.

Detail from The Birth of Venus by Bouguereau.

An early reviewer stated, “M. Bouguereau has a natural instinct and knowledge of contour. The eurythmie of the human body preoccupies him, and in recalling the happy results which, in this genre, the ancients and the artists of the sixteenth century arrived at, one can only congratulate M. Bouguereau in attempting to follow in their footsteps…Raphael was inspired by the ancients…and no one accused him of not being original.”[4]

Raphael was a favorite of Bouguereau and he took this review as a high compliment. He had fulfilled one of the requirements of the Prix de Rome by completing a old-master copy of Raphael’s The Triumph of Galatea. In many of his works, he followed the same classical approach to composition, form, and subject matter.[5] Bouguereau's graceful portraits of women were very charming, partly because he could beautify a sitter while also retaining her likeness.

In 1856, he married Marie-Nelly Monchablon and subsequently had five children. By the late 1850s, he made strong connections with art dealers, particularly Paul Durand-Ruel (later the champion of the Impressionists), who helped clients buy paintings from artists who exhibited at the Salons.[6] The Salons annually drew over 300,000 people, thereby providing valuable exposure to exhibited artists.[7] Bouguereau’s fame extended to England by the 1860s and then he bought a large house and studio in Montparnasse with his growing income.[8]

Bouguereau was a staunch traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects—both pagan and Christian—with a heavy concentration on the female human body. Although he created an idealized world, his almost photo-realistic style brought to life his goddesses, nymphs, bathers, shepherdesses, and madonnas in a way which was very appealing to rich art patrons of his time. Some critics, however, preferred the honesty of Jean-François Millet’s truer-to-life depiction of hard-working farmers and laborers.

Bouguereau employed traditional methods of working up a painting, including detailed pencil studies and oil sketches, and his careful method resulted in a pleasing and accurate rendering of the human form. His painting of skin, hands, and feet was particularly admired.[9] He also used some of the religious and erotic symbolism of the Old Masters, such as the “broken pitcher” which connoted lost innocence.[10]

One of the rewards of staying within the Academic style and doing well in the Salons was receiving commissions to decorate private houses, public buildings, and churches. As was typical of these commissions, sometimes Bouguereau would paint in his own style, and other times he had to conform to an existing group style. Early on, Bouguereau was commissioned in all three venues, which added enormously to his prestige and fame. He also made reductions of his public paintings for sale to patrons, of which The Annunciation (1888) is an example.[11] He was also a successful portrait painter though many of his paintings of wealthy patrons still remain in private hands.[12]

Bouguereau steadily gained the honors of the Academy, reaching Life Member in 1876, and Commander of the Legion of Honor and Grand Medal of Honor in 1885.[13] He began to teach drawing at the Académie Julian in 1875, a co-ed art institution independent of the École des Beaux-Arts, with no entrance exams and with nominal fees.[14]

In 1877, both his wife and infant son died. At a rather advanced age, Bouguereau was married for the second time in 1896, to fellow artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, one of his pupils.[15] He also used his influence to open many French art institutions to women for the first time, including the Académie française.

Near the end of his life he described his love of his art, “Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come…if I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable”.[16] He painted eight hundred and twenty-six paintings.

In the spring of 1905, Bouguereau's house and studio in Paris were robbed. On August 19, 1905, Bouguereau died in La Rochelle at the age of 79 from heart disease.

Fame and fall

Tête d'Etude l'Oiseau (1867)

In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world by the Academic art community, and simultaneously he was reviled by the avant-garde. He also gained wide fame in Belgium, Holland, Spain, and in the United States, and commanded high prices.[12]

Bouguereau’s career was a nearly straight up ascent with hardly a setback.[17] To many, he epitomized taste and refinement, and a respect for tradition. To others, he was a competent technician stuck in the past. Degas and his associates used the term “Bouguereauté” in a derogatory manner to describe any artistic style reliant on “slick and artificial surfaces”,[17] also known as a licked finish. In an 1872 letter, Degas wrote that he strove to emulate Bouguereau’s ordered and productive working style, although with Degas' famous trenchant wit, and the aesthetic tendencies of the two Impressionists, it is possible the statement was meant to be ironic[18].

Bouguereau’s works were eagerly bought by American millionaires who considered him the most important French artist of that time.[12] But after 1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute, due in part to changing tastes and partly to his staunch opposition to the Impressionists who were finally gaining acceptance. For decades following, his name was not even mentioned in encyclopedias.

His name

Sources on his full name are contradictory: some give William-Adolphe Bouguereau (composed name), William Adolphe Bouguereau (usual and civil-only names according to the French tradition), while others give Adolphe William Bouguereau (with Adolphe as the usual name). However, the artist used to sign his works simply as William Bouguereau (hinting "William" was his given name, whatever the order), or more precisely as "W.Bouguereau.date" (French alphabet) and later as "W-BOVGVEREAV-date" (Latin alphabet).

Bouguereau's signature (detail).

Legacy

In 1974, the New York Cultural Center staged a show of Bouguereau's work as a curiosity. In 1984, the Borghi Gallery hosted the commercial show of his 23 oil paintings and 1 drawing. In the same year a major exhibition was organized by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, in Canada. The exhibition opened at the Musée du Petit-Palais, in Paris, traveled to The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, and concluded in Montréal. This was the beginning of renewal of interest about Bouguereau[citation needed]. In 1997 Mark Borghi and Laura Borghi organized an early Internet exhibition. Bouguereau present day supporters also include New Jersey millionaire, businessman, and art collector Fred Ross whose internet-based Art Renewal Center heavily features Bouguereau's work as part of their advocacy for the re-appreciation of academic art.[19] Today, over one hundred museums throughout the world exhibit Bouguereau's works[citation needed].

Selected works

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, Bouguereau, Pomegranate Artbooks, Rohnert Park, CA, 1996, ISBN 0-87654-582-7, p. 11
  2. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 11
  3. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 12
  4. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 24
  5. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 25
  6. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 13
  7. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 70
  8. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 14
  9. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 112
  10. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 60
  11. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 31
  12. ^ a b c Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 103
  13. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 16
  14. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 110
  15. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 15
  16. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 114
  17. ^ a b Fronia E. Wissman, 1996, p. 9
  18. ^ Fronia E. Wissman, Bouguereau, page 103
  19. ^ Roth, Mark. "Gifted artist? Bouguereau's work controversial more than a century after his death", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 21 August 2007. Retrieved 8 September 2007

References

  • Albert Boime: The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1971).
  • Aleska Celebonovic: Peinture kitsch ou réalisme bourgeois, l'art pompier dans le monde. Paris: Seghers, 1974.
  • Art Pompier: Anti-Impressionism. New York: The Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, 1974.
  • Mario Amaya (Forward), Robert Isaacson (catalogue and selection): William Adolphe Bouguereau. New York: New York Cultural Center, 1974.
  • John Russell: Art: Cultural Center Honors Bouguereau. In New York Times, 1974.
  • Louise d 'Argencourt and Douglas Druick: The Other Nineteenth Century. Ottawa: The National Gallery of Canada, 1978.
  • James Harding: Les peintres pompiers. Paris: Flammarion, 1980.
  • "The Bouguereau Market". The Art newsletter. January 6, 1981. pp. 6-8.
  • Louise d'Argencourt and Mark Steven Walker: William Bouguereau. Montreal, Canada: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1984.
  • Robert Rosenblum and H.W. Janson: 19th Century Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984.
  • Michael Gibson: Bouguereau's "Photo-Idealism". In International Herald Tribune, 1984.
  • Grace Glueck: To Bouguereau, Art Was Strictly "The Beautiful. In The New York Times, 1985.
  • Cécile Ritzenthaler: L'école des beaux art du XIXe siècle. édition Mayer, 1987
  • Exhibition catalogue William Adolphe Bouguereau, L'Art Pompier. Borghi & Co., New York, 1991.

External links

Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William-Adolphe Bouguereau
This section looks like an image gallery. Wikipedia policy discourages galleries of random images of the article subject; please edit or remove the section accordingly, moving freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons if not already hosted there.

Gallery

1850s
Dante And Virgil In Hell (1850)  
A Portrait of Amelina Dufaud Bouguereau (1850)  
A Portrait of Eugène Bouguereau (1850)  
A Portrait of Geneviève Bouguereau (1850)  
A Portrait of Léonie Bouguereau (1850)  
Portrait of Monsieur M. (1850)  
Fraternal Love (1851)  
Arion on a Sea Horse (1855)  
Bacchante on a Panther (1855)  
The Dance (1856)  
Charity (1859)  
The Day of the Dead (1859)  

1860s
Tobias Saying Good-Bye to his Father (1860)  
Young Woman Contemplating Two Embracing Children (1861)  
The Remorse of Orestes (1862)  
The Prayer (1865)  
Soup (1865)  
Premières Caresses (1866)  
Gypsy Girl with a Basque Drum (1867)  
Yvonnette (1867)  
The Bunch Of Grapes (1868)  
Young Shepherdess (1868)  
The Elder Sister (1869)  
The Haymaker (1869)  
The Knitting Girl (1869)  
Maternal Admiration (1869)  
Washerwomen of Fouesnant (1869)  
Young Worker (1869)  
Seule au monde (before 1867)  

1870s
Bather (1870)  
Breton Brother and Sister (1871)  
Italian Girl Drawing Water (1871)  
Young Mother Gazing At Her Child (1871)  
Pendant l'Orage (1872)  
The Proposal (1872)  
Nymphs and Satyr (1873)  
The Spinner (1873)  
Child Braiding A Crown (1874)  
Homer and his Guide (1874)  
After the Bath (1875)  
At the Edge of the Brook (1875)  
Cupidon (1875)  
Flora And Zephyr (1875)  
Lullaby (1875)  
The Virgin, Jesus & Saint John Baptist (1875)  
Charity (1878)  
The Nymphaeum (1878)  
Return from the Harvest (1878)  
At the Edge of the Brook (1879)  
The Birth of Venus (1879)  
Rest (1879)  
Young Gypsies (1879)  
La Frileuse (1879)  
Tricoteuse (1879)  
Mademoiselle Elizabeth Gardner (1879)  
The Bather (1879)  

1880s
The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880)  
Temptation (1880)  
A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros (1880)  
Dawn (1881)  
Day (1881)  
The Shepherdess (1881)  
Song of the Angels (1881)  
Evening Mood (1882)  
The Little Knitter (1882)  
The Nut Gatherers (1882)  
The Motherland (1883)  
La Nuit (1883)  
Biblis (1884)  
Crown of Flowers (1884)  
The Difficult Lesson (1884)  
The Horseback Ride (1884)  
Seated Nude (1884)  
Lost Pleiad (1884)  
The Youth of Bacchus (1884)  
Love's Resistance (1885)  
Young Girl Going to the Spring (1885)  
The Young Shepherdess (1885)  
Big Sis' (1886)  
Return of Spring (1886)  
Self-Portrait Presented To M. Sage (1886)  
Thirst (1886)  
Brother And Sister (1887)  
Young Shepherdess Standing (1887)  
Premier Deuil or The First Mourning (1888)  
Study: Head Of A Little Girl (1888)  
L'Amour et Psyché, enfants (1889)  
The Little Shepherdess (1889)  
The Shepherdess (1889)  
Whisperings of Love (1889)  
Young Girl Crocheting (1889)  

1890s
The Bohemian (1890)  
A Little Coaxing (1890)  
Love on the Look Out (1890)  
Portrait of Gabrielle Cot (1890)  
The Broken Pitcher (1891)  
The Goose Girl (1891)  
Work Interrupted (1891)  
Psyche (1892)  
The Invasion (1893)  
Youth (1893)  
After the Bath (1894)  
Bacchante (1894)  
Daisies (1894)  
The Palm Leaf (1894)  
The Abduction of Psyche (1895)  
In Penitence (1895)  
Not Too Much To Carry (1895)  
The Song of the Nightingale (1895)  
Spring Breeze (1895)  
A Calling (1896)  
At The Fountain (1897)  
Compassion (1897)  
Irène (1897)  
The Curtsey (1898)  
Head Of A Young Girl (1898)  
Inspiration (1898)  
Sewing (1898)  
Elegy (1899)  
Girl Holding Lemons (1899)  
Mailice (1899)  

1900s
The Virgin With Angels (1900)  
Laurel Branch (1900)  
Before The Bath (1900)  
A Childhood Idyll (1900)  
Two Sisters (1901)  
Dream of Spring (1901)  
Young Priestess (1902)  
The Madonna of the Roses (1903)  
Far Niente (1904)  

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Art Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art. Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "William-Adolphe Bouguereau".  Read more