William-Adolphe Bouguereau

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William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Artist Portrait (1879).jpg
Portrait of the Artist (1879)
Birth name William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Born (1825-11-30)November 30, 1825
La Rochelle, France
Died August 19, 1905(1905-08-19) (aged 79)
La Rochelle, France
Nationality French
Field Painter
Movement Realism
Works

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French: [buɡ(ə)ˈʁo], November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter and traditionalist. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.[1] During his life he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work.[2] As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde.[2] By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes.[2] In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work.[2] Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown.[3]

Contents

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[edit] 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 Roman Catholic priest, who taught him classical and Biblical subjects, and arranged for Bouguereau to go to high school. He showed artistic talent early on. 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.[4]

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.[4] 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,[5] with his Zenobia Found by Shepherds on the Banks of the Araxes.[6] His reward was a year 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, as well as Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities.[5] He also studied classical literature, which influenced his subject choice for the rest of his career.[5]

The Wave (1896)

Bouguereau, painting entirely within the traditional Academic style, exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire working life. 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."[7]

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 an 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.[8] Bouguereau's graceful portraits of women were considered 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 had 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.[9] Thanks to Paul Durand-Ruel, Bouguereau met Hugues Merle, who later often was compared to Bouguereau. The Salons annually drew over 300,000 people, providing valuable exposure to exhibited artists.[10] Bouguereau’s fame extended to England by the 1860s, and he bought a large house and studio in Montparnasse with his growing income.[11]

The Birth of Venus (1879)

Bouguereau was a staunch traditionalist whose genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects, both pagan and Christian, with a concentration on the naked female human body. The idealized world of his paintings, brought to life goddesses, nymphs, bathers, shepherdesses, and madonnas in a way that appealed to wealthy art patrons of the era.

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.[12] He also used some of the religious and erotic symbolism of the Old Masters, such as the "broken pitcher" which connoted lost innocence.[13]

Bouguereau received many commissions to decorate private houses, public buildings, and churches. As was typical of such commissions, Bouguereau would sometimes paint in his own style, and at other times 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.[14] He was also a successful portrait painter and many of his paintings of wealthy patrons remain in private hands.[15]

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.[16] 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.[17]

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.[18] He 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."[19] He painted 826 paintings.

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

[edit] Fame and fall

The Young Shepherdess (1885)

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, the Netherlands, Spain, and in the United States, and commanded high prices.[15]

Bouguereau’s career was close to a direct ascent with hardly a setback.[20] 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”,[20] 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 Impressionists, it is possible the statement was meant to be ironic.[15]

Bouguereau’s works were eagerly bought by American millionaires who considered him the most important French artist of that time.[15] But after 1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute, due in part to changing tastes[5] 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.[citation needed]

[edit] Bouguereau as a teacher

From the 1860s, Bouguereau was closely associated with the Académie Julian where he gave lessons and advice to art students, male and female, from around the world. During several decades he taught drawing and painting to hundreds, if not thousands, of students. Many of them managed to establish artistic careers in their own countries, sometimes following his academic style, and in other cases, rebelling against it, like Henri Matisse. He married his most famous pupil, Elizabeth Jane Gardner, after the death of his first wife.

[edit] 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 Montreal 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. In 1997 Mark Borghi and Laura Borghi organized an early Internet exhibition. A 2005 exhibit of three works by Bouguereau at the J. Paul Getty Museum, "instantly became the single most popular work at the museum, ultimately building to tens of thousands of visitors clogging the halls waiting their turn to see the exhibit."[21] Bouguereau's works are in many public collections.

[edit] Name

Bouguereau's signature

Sources on his full name are contradictory: it is sometimes given as William-Adolphe Bouguereau (composed name), William Adolphe Bouguereau (usual and civil-only names according to the French tradition), while in other occasions it appears as 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).

[edit] Selected works

Sewing (1898)

[edit] See also

[edit] Gallery

For an extensive gallery, see William-Adolphe Bouguereau at Wikimedia Commons.

  • Fraternal Love (1851)

  • The Day of the Dead (1859)

  • Gypsy Girl with a Basque Drum (1867)

  • Maternal Admiration (1869)

  • Bather (1870)

  • Italian Girl Drawing Water (1871)

  • Nymphs and Satyr (1873)

  • After the Bath (1875)

  • La Frileuse (1879)

  • A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros (1880)

  • Biblis (1884)

  • Seated Nude (1884)

  • Whisperings of Love (1889)

  • A Little Coaxing (1890)

  • Innocence (1893)

  • Daisies (1894)

  • Two Sisters (1901)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wissman, Fronia E. (1996). Bouguereau. San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks. p. 10. ISBN 978-0876545829. 
  2. ^ a b c d Glueck, Grace (January 6, 1985). "To Bouguereau, Art Was Strictly 'The Beautiful'". The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2013. 
  3. ^ Ross, Fred. "William Bouguereau: Genius Reclaimed". Art Renewal. Retrieved January 27, 2013. 
  4. ^ a b Wissman 1996, p. 11.
  5. ^ a b c d Andrews, Gail (2011). Birmingham Museum of Art: Guide to the Collection. London: D Giles Ltd. pp. 222–223. ISBN 978-1904832775. 
  6. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 12.
  7. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 24.
  8. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 25.
  9. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 13.
  10. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 70.
  11. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 14.
  12. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 112.
  13. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 60.
  14. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 31.
  15. ^ a b c d Wissman 1996, p. 103.
  16. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 16.
  17. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 110.
  18. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 15.
  19. ^ Wissman 1996, p. 114.
  20. ^ a b Wissman 1996, p. 9.
  21. ^ Yoder, Brian (June 6, 2006). "The Great Bouguereau Debate". Art Renewal. Retrieved January 27, 2013. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Boime, Albert (1974). Art Pompier: Anti-Impressionism. New York: Hofstra University Press. 
  • Boime, Albert (1986). The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300037326. 
  • Celebonovic, Aleska (1974). Peinture kitsch ou réalisme bourgeois, l'art pompier dans le monde. Paris: Seghers. 
  • D'Argencourt, Louise (1981). The Other Nineteenth Century (First ed.). Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada. ISBN 978-0888843487. 
  • D'Argencourt, Louise; Walker, Mark Steven (1984). William Bouguereau 1925–1905. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 
  • Gibson, Michael (1984). "Bouguereau's 'Photo-Idealism'". International Herald Tribune. 
  • Glueck, Grace (January 6, 1985). "To Bouguereau, Art Was Strictly 'The Beautiful'". The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2013. 
  • Harding, James (1980). Les peintres pompiers. Paris: Flammarion. 
  • Isaacson, Robert (1974). William Adolphe Bouguereau. New York: New York Cultural Center. 
  • Lécharny, Louis-Marie (1998). L'Art-Pompier. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2130493419. 
  • Ritzenthaler, Cécile (1987). L'école des beaux art du XIXe siècle. Paris: Editions Mayer. ISBN 978-2852990029. 
  • Rosenblum, Robert; Janson, H.W. (2004). 19th Century Art (Second ed.). New York: Pearson. ISBN 978-0131895621. 
  • Russell, John (December 23, 1974). "Art: Cultural Center Honors Bouguereau". The New York Times. 
  • "The Bouguereau Market". The Arte newsletter. January 6, 1981. pp. 6–8. 

[edit] External links

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