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 Française.
Real name dilemma
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).
Exhibitions
His first modern exhibition appeared in 1974 at the New York Cultural Center 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. In 1997 Mark Borghi and Laura Borghi organized an early Internet exhibition.
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).
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouguereau
Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License
| Students included Lovis Corinth and Pierre-Auguste Cot
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