Background

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born on November 30, 1825 in La Rochelle, France. He was a son of Théodore Bouguereau, a successful wine and olive oil merchant, and Marie Bonnin. Also, William-Adolphe had a brother, Alfred, and two sisters — Kitty and Marie (also known as Hanna), who died, when she was seven.

Education

At the age of twelve, William-Adolphe was sent to live with his uncle Eugène, a priest, in Mortagne, possibly to prepare for a career in the Church. It was at that time, that the boy developed a love of nature, religion and literature.

Some time later after moving to live with his uncle, Bouguereau was sent to the Catholic college in Pons, where he continued his religious and secular education. There, in Pons, Bouguereau was mentored in drawing by Louis Sage, but his studies were interrupted by his father, who demanded, that he join the family at their new home in Bordeaux, in south-east France. Also, at that time, William-Adolphe met Charles Marionneau, a local artist and historian, who helped him to gain admission to the Municipal School of Painting and Drawing.

Despite the fact, that the artist was under his father's pressure, who wanted him to contribute to his business, William-Adolphe resumed his artistic training, financing his education by creating hand-colored lithographs for food products. He excelled in this mercenary work, eventually saving enough money to move to Paris in 1846.

In Paris, the artist entered the École des Beaux-Arts. In order to supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology. Also, Bouguereau was admitted to the studio of François-Édouard Picot, where he studied painting in the academic style.

William-Adolphe also desired to win the Grand Prix de Rome, a prize, which included sponsored study at the French Academy in Rome. After two unsuccessful attempts, he riched his goal with the grand historical painting "Zenobia Found by Shepherds on the Banks of the Arax".

In January 1851, the artist left for Rome, where he spent the next three years, improving his technical skills and studying art collections, churches, architecture and sculpture. In 1854, William-Adolphe finished his studies in Rome and left for his home town of La Rochelle.

Career

At the beginning of his career, he mainly concentrated on the Neoclassical style, in which he had been trained, and the display of his work at the Salons generated enormous interest from middle and upper-class patrons, and created opportunities to decorate state buildings and churches.

In 1856, the artist received a commission from Emperor Napoleon III, for whom he created the unashamedly propagandist work, entitled "Napoleon III Visiting the Floods of Tarascon". In that work, the artist depicted the emperor's humanitarian visits to areas of the Rhône and Loire Valleys, recently devastated by flooding.

Approximately since 1860's, William-Adolphe began focusing on grand historical and classical subjects. In 1866, Bouguereau signed an exclusive contract with the powerful Parisian art dealer Adolphe Goupil. As a result of this, he was exposed to large and generous patronage in the United States. In fact, almost seventy per cent of his production after 1866 was intended for and sold to American collectors.

In the 1870's, Bouguereau's influence spread well beyond France, and he became active in artists' societies in Belgium, Austria and Spain. Over the last few decades of his life, Bouguereau became an enthusiastic and influential teacher, mentoring both male and female artists in the Academic style. From 1872 onwards, he taught at the prestigious Académie Julian, and became known for advocating the training of female artists within that institution.

Also, as a President of the Société des Artistes Français, Bouguereau was a crucial member of the Salon jury, and often opposed to the subject matter and techniques of the Impressionists.

Achievements

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau gained prominence for his realist depictions of the human figure, set within Neoclassical and rustic settings. In his own era, he was one of the most reputable and commercially successful artists in the Western world. Also, Bouguereau was a respected and loved teacher.
  
  His most famous works include "The Birth of Venus", "The Bohemian", "Dante and Virgil in Hell" and others. Some of his paintings were sold at high prices, including the work "L'Amour et Psyche, enfants", which was sold for $1,760,000 at Christie's in 1999.
  
  During his lifetime, the artist received many awards and honours, including Second Prix de Rome in 1848, Premier Prix de Rome in 1850, Grand Medal of Honour in 1885 and others.
  
  In 1859, William-Adolphe was made a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour. Some time later, in 1876, he became an Officer and finally, in 1885, he was made a Commander of the same order. Moreover, in 1905, Bouguereau was awarded the title of Grand Officier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour.
  
  In 1881, William-Adolphe Bouguereau was made a Knight of the Order of Leopold.
  
  Today, his works are kept in the collections of different museums, art institutions and galleries, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • The bird Ch ri

  • Teen and Children

  • Parure des Champs

  • The Broken Pitcher

  • Virgin and Child

  • Idylle

  • The Bunch Of Grapes

  • Assault

  • Reverie

  • Knitting machine

  • The Pastoral Recreation

  • Moissoneuse

  • Madame la Comtesse de Cambaceres

  • The Nut Gatherers

  • Twilight or Dusk or Evening Mood

  • Inspiration

  • Portrait of Genevieve Celine

  • Far from home

  • After the Bath

  • The Virgin, Jesus and Saint John Baptist

  • Young Woman Contemplating Two Embracing Children

  • The elder sister

  • The Proposal

  • Dante and Virgil

  • Love's Scerets

  • The Motherland

  • Virgin Comforter

  • The Two Bathers

  • The Dance

  • Elpieglerie

  • Head Of A Little Girl

  • The First Mourning

  • Daisies

  • Faneuse

  • The Spinner

  • Pieta

  • A Portrait of Eugène Bouguereau

  • The Kiss

  • Cupidon

  • Lambs

  • The Little Knitter

  • Far from home

  • Woman of Cervara and Her Child

  • Child at Bath

  • Meditation

  • The Virgin, Jesus and Saint John Baptist

  • Love and Psyche

  • Portrait of Miss Elizabeth Gardner

  • Compassion

  • Art and Literature

  • Girl Holding Lemons

  • Mother and Children

  • Love's Resistance

  • Girl bouquet

  • Back Fields

  • Cupid and Psyche

  • A moment of rest

  • Little sulky

  • Gypsy Girl with a Basque Drum

  • Baigneuse

  • Nymphs and Satyr

  • Biblis

  • Head Study of Female Face Blonde

  • The Bohemian

  • Fraternal Love

  • Psyche and Amour

  • Tobias Receives his Father's Blessing

  • Songs of Spring

  • The Nymphaeum

  • Soul Carried to Heaven

  • Alone in the world

  • Wave

  • Young Worker

  • Knitting machine

  • The Knitter

  • Love Disarmed

  • Love on the Look

  • The Knitting Girl

  • Reflexion

  • The Youth of Bacchus

  • Earrings

  • Branche de Laurier

  • Yvonne

  • Portrait of Monsieur M.

  • Return from the Harvest

  • Rest in Harvest

  • Apples

  • The Madonna of the Lilies

  • The Water Girl (Young Girl Going to the Spring)

  • L'admiration

  • On Greve

  • Dawn

  • The chilly

  • Italian Woman with Tambourine

  • The Charity

  • The Curtsey

  • At the Edge of the Brook

  • A Portrait of Amelina Dufaud

  • The Goose Girl

  • Bacchante

  • Young Shepherdess

  • The Thank Offering

  • Lady with Glove

  • The Two Sisters

  • A Childhood Idyll

  • Italian Girl Drawing Water

  • Prayer

  • Cupid on a sea monster

  • Plums

  • The Elder Sister

  • The Prayer

  • Lady Maxwell

  • The Return of Spring

  • Work Interrupted

  • Cupid with Butterfly

  • The return of the market

  • Song of the Angels

  • Head Of A Young Girl

  • Homer and his Guide

  • Sainte Famille

  • The Veil

  • Bacchante

  • Portrait of a young girl

  • Her First Jewels

  • Portrait of Madame Olry Roederer

  • Sleep

  • Little sulky

  • Equality before Death

  • A Little Coaxing

  • Soup

  • The Little Beggar

  • The Secret

  • Head Study of Female Face Blonde

  • The Bather

  • Berceuse

  • Portrait of Léonie Bouguereau

  • Study of the Head of Elize

  • Lidylle

  • The Heart's Awakening

  • Child Braiding A Crown

  • The Shepherdess

  • Vocation

  • Adolphus Child And Teen

  • Portrait of Gabrielle Cot

  • Leveil Heart

  • The hard lesson

  • Cupid with Thorn

  • Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ

  • Mignon

  • The Snack

  • Psyche

  • Thirst

  • Yvonne

  • At The Fountain

  • Portrait of Mlle Brissac

  • The Little Knitter

  • Spring Breeze

  • Small marauding

  • The Shell

  • Shepherdess

  • Portrait of a Young Girl Crocheting

  • Night

  • Study of a Young Girl s Head

  • All Saints Day

  • Washerwomen of Fouesnant

  • Irene

  • Day

  • Prayer at Sainte Anne d'Auray

  • Gleaners

  • Orestes Pursued by the Furies

  • Cupid and Psyche

  • In Penitence

  • Youth

  • Before The Bath

  • Harvester

  • The Abduction of Psyche

  • Birth Of Venus

  • Seated Nude

  • Elegy

  • Letoile lost

  • Breton Brother and Sister

  • The Crab

  • Little Esmeralda

  • Marguerite

  • Maternal Admiration

  • The Young Shepherdess

  • Young Mother Gazing At Her Child

  • Woman with Shell

  • Zenobia found by shepherds on the banks of the Araxes

  • Pleasant Burden

  • At the Edge of the Brook

  • Brother and Sister

  • Little beggar

  • Yvonette

Religion

As William-Adolphe's mother was from a middle-class Calvinist family, and his father was a Roman Catholic, they decided to raise their sons as Catholics and their daughters as Protestants.

Views

Quotations: "For me, a work of art should be a heightened interpretation of Nature. The quest for the Ideal has been the purpose of my life. In a landscape or seascape I love poetic subjects above all."

"One has to seek Beauty and Truth. There's only one kind of painting. It's the painting that presents the eye with perfection, the kind of beautiful and impeccable enamel you find in Veronese and Titian."

"Every minute of mine costs 100 Francs."

"Whoever gets a picture by Bouguereau gets the full worth of his money, in finished painting, first-rate drawing, and a subject and treatment that no well-bred person can fault."

"In spite of all that is written to the contrary, an artist only reproduces what he finds in nature — to know how to see and how to seize what one sees — there is all the secret of the imagination."

"Think about the drawing, the color, the composition — when you work you must consider all these things equally."

"I am very eclectic, as you see. I accept and respect all schools of painting which have as the basis of their doctrine the sincere study of nature and the search for the true and the beautiful. As for the Impressionists, the Pointillists, etc., I cannot discuss them. I do not see the way they see, or claim to see. That is the only reason for my negative opinion about them."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "No head of an artist's studio, no private master was ever more broadminded or less discriminative, or ever recommended free inquiry, initiative, and personality, with as much persuasiveness and independence." — Marius Vachon, art historian, on Bouguereau's teaching

Interests

• Greek sculpture

• Artists

  Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens and Delacroix

Connections

In 1866, William-Adolphe married Nelly Monchablon, a model, with whom he had five children, three of which died in infancy. Shortly after Nelly's death in 1877, the artist began a relationship with Elizabeth Jane Gardner, a notable artist and model, whom he would marry in 1896.

Father:

Théodore Bouguereau

Mother:

Marie Bonnin

Sister:

Kitty Bouguereau

Sister:

Marie (known as Hanna)

Brother:

Alfred Bouguereau

First wife:

Nelly Monchablon

Second wife:

Elizabeth Jane Gardner

mentor:

Louis Sage

mentor:

François-Édouard Picot

References

• William Bouguereau: The Essential Works This book explores Bouguereau's work in new depth, with expert insight into his most important paintings.
  2018
• William-Adolphe Bouguereau: Masterpieces This art book contains 250 reproductions of angels and cherubs, children, portraits, genre scenes, religious and mythical themes with gallery page for all images, biography and museum links.
  2014
• Bouguereau The author of this work, Fronia E. Wissman, offers astute and illuminating insights into the art, career, and family life of this great artist, whose beautiful paintings of a better, purer time and place continue to find favor with contemporary viewers.
  1996
• William Bouguereau: His Life and Works This is a beautifully illustrated and comprehensive biography of French academic painter William Bouguereau.
  2014