William A. Bouguereau

William A. Bouguereau

A Calling (Une Vocation)

William A. Bouguereau

A Childhood Idyll

William A. Bouguereau

A Dream of Spring (Reve de Printemps)

William A. Bouguereau

A Girl Defending Herself Against Eros

William A. Bouguereau

A Little Coaxing

William A. Bouguereau

A Portrait of Leonie Bouguereau

William A. Bouguereau

A Soul Brought to Heaven

William A. Bouguereau

Admiration (L’Admiration)

William A. Bouguereau

After the Bath (Apres le Bain)

William A. Bouguereau

All Saints’ Day

William A. Bouguereau

Apples (Les Pommes)

William A. Bouguereau

Art and Literature

William A. Bouguereau

At the Edge of the Brook

William A. Bouguereau

At the Edge of the Brook

William A. Bouguereau

At the Fountain (A la Fontaine)

William A. Bouguereau

Bacchante

William A. Bouguereau

Bather

William A. Bouguereau

Bather (Baigneuse)

William A. Bouguereau

Before the Bath (Avant le bain)

William A. Bouguereau

Biblis

William A. Bouguereau

Big Sister (La Soeur Ainee)

William A. Bouguereau

Birth of Venus (Naissance de Venus)

William A. Bouguereau

Blessures d’Amour

William A. Bouguereau

Breton Brother and Sister

William A. Bouguereau

Charity (La Charite)

William A. Bouguereau

Child at Bath

William A. Bouguereau

Child Braiding a Crown

William A. Bouguereau

Compassion

William A. Bouguereau

Cupid and Psyche as Children

William A. Bouguereau

Daisies (Paquerettes)

William A. Bouguereau

A Girl Defending Herself Against Eros

William A. Bouguereau

Dante and Virgil in Hell

William A. Bouguereau

A Soul Brought to Heaven

William A. Bouguereau

Birth of Venus (Naissance de Venus)

William A. Bouguereau

At the Fountain (A la Fontaine)

William A. Bouguereau

Cupid and Psyche as Children

William A. Bouguereau

The Rapture of Psyche

William A. Bouguereau

Evening Mood (La Crepuscule)

William A. Bouguereau

The Hazelnuts Gatherers

William A. Bouguereau

Rest in Harvest

William A. Bouguereau Paintings

William Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle. A student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he won the Prix de Rome in 1850 and his realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire working life. Although he fell into disregard in the early 20th century, 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 in the world. In 1900, his contemporaries Edgar Degas and Claude Monet reportedly named him as most likely to be remembered as the greatest 19th-century French painter by the year 2000. Although with Degas' famous trenchant wit, and the aesthetic tendencies of the two Impressionists, it is possible the statement was meant as an ironic comment on the taste of the future public. Bouguereau's 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 was married for the second time, to 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 Académie française.

Learn more: William Adolphe Bouguereau - Wikipedia