BOUGUEREAU, William-Adolphe, Featured Paintings in Detail

BOUGUEREAU, William-Adolphe
At The Edge Of The Brook
1885
Oil on canvas
Collection of Fred and Sherry Ross

At The Edge Of The Brook (detail)
1885
Oil on canvas
Collection of Fred and Sherry Ross

Featured Paintings in Detail

The Birth of Venus
1879
Oil on canvas, 300 x 215 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The Birth of Venus (detail)
1879
Oil on canvas, 300 x 215 cm

Pietà
1876
Oil on canvas, 222.9 × 149.2 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas

Pietà (detail)
1876
Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas

Dante And Virgil In Hell
1850

Dante And Virgil In Hell (detail)
1850

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Featured Paintings in Detail
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Dante and Virgil in Hell
Having failed on two occasions to win the Prix de Rome (1848 and 1849), Bouguereau was hungry for revenge. His early submissions to the Salon
reveal this fierce desire to succeed. After his ambitious Equality before Death (1849), the young man aimed to create an impression once again.
He put forward an even larger painting inspired by Dante whose work was much loved by the Romantics and who captured all its dramatic beauty.
This painting was inspired by a short scene from the Inferno, set in the eighth circle of Hell (the circle for falsifiers and counterfeiters), where Dante,
accompanied by Virgil, watches a fight between two damned souls: Capocchio, a heretic and alchemist is attacked and bitten on the neck by Gianni
Schicchi who had usurped the identity of a dead man in order to fraudulently claim his inheritance.
In fact, Bouguereau here shows great boldness. He is exploring the aesthetic boundaries: exaggerating the muscle structure to the point of distorting
it, exaggerating the poses, contrasting colour and shadows, depicting monstrous figures and groups of damned souls.
Everything in this painting underlines the feeling of terribilita and horror: a theme to which Bouguereau would never again return.

Pietà
The Pietà, 1876, provides a very unique depiction of this most famous of imagery. The weeping Mary cloaked in a robe of black is mourning the death of her
son whom she holds to her chest.
The dead body of Jesus limply hangs in her arms while eight weeping angels surround them. The angels are clad in the colors of the rainbow and create an
arc over Mary and Jesus. In the Old Testament, after the great flood had ended, Noah and his family saw an arcing rainbow, which was a sign from God that
the flood was over and the world could be born anew. In Bouguereau's Pietà, the rainbow symbolizes that the sacrifice of Jesus was complete and that the
human soul can be born anew and ascend to God after death.
Mary looks out and up. It is intended to be unclear whether if from her seated position she is focused on the viewer or the heavens with her swollen red eyes,
filled with sorrow and accusation. Most likely as a mother mourns the loss of her child, she is accusing both the heavens and the earth for the pain she and
her son has suffered. This interpretation of Mary is different from Michelangelo's Pietà or many other versions, where Mary is offering her child to the world.
Bouguereau's Mary clutches Christ, not offering him to a sinful world that required her son's sacrifice.
At Jesus' feet lies the crown of thorns used to mock him during the Crucifixion; it lies on a white cloth covered in the blood of Christ, showing the torment
Jesus went though in order that humanity could attain salvation. The white robe and pitcher of water represent the purity of Jesus' soul. Both Jesus and Mary
are surrounded by a halo of light indicating their holiness.
This painting was inspired by the death of Bouguereau's eldest son, George, who died directly before Bouguereau started work on this piece in 1875.
Bouguereau had the grave misfortune to have lost 4 of his five children during his lifetime.

The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus (French: La Naissance de Vénus) is one of the most famous paintings by 19th-century painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It
depicts not the actual birth of Venus from the sea, but her transportation in a shell as a fully mature woman from the sea to Paphos in Cyprus. She is
considered the epitome of the Classical Greek and Roman ideal of the female form and beauty, on par with Venus de Milo.
The subject matter, as well as the composition, resembles a previous rendition of this subject, Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, as well as
Raphael's The Triumph of Galatea.
At the center of the painting, Venus stands nude on a scallop shell[3] being pulled by a dolphin, one of her symbols. Fifteen putti, including Cupid and
Psyche, and several nymphs and centaurs have gathered to witness Venus' arrival. Most of the figures are gazing at her, and two of the centaurs are
blowing into conch and Triton shells, signaling her arrival.
To the upper-left of the painting, there is a shadow in the clouds. It appears to be the silhouette of the artist, with a head, shoulder, arm, and a raised fist
that would seem to hold a paintbrush.

At The Edge Of The Brook
This painting is one of the most sensitive single figures ever painted. Hauntingly enigmatic, but kind and beautiful, this young peasant girl's
childhood innocence blends seamlessly with the emerging woman who rivets your eyes to hers. She stares directly at you with a serene kindness
imbued with goodness and trust. Inherent is the moral imperative not to betray that trust. This is a prime example of Bouguereau's unique ability
to capture ever subtle nuances of personality and mood.
Symbolically she sits by "The Edge of the River". She sits at perhaps the greatest crossroads in life. Her hands and legs are crossed to
accentuate that symbolism as are the trunks of the trees behind and to the viewer's right. She wears a humanistic halo of vibrant red flowers
alluding to the spirituality inherent in youth.

William Bouguereau, a French academic painter. His polished, refined technique and his
sophisticated style represented the height of achievement in the French academic art tradition.
His work was characterized by a highly finished, technically impeccable realism and a
sentimental interpretation of his subject matter. Bouguereau paintings look professional, very
skilful, and almost real. He masterfully brought together the elements of exquisite drawing,
incredible coloration and perspective, and brilliant modeling and compositions.
There can be little doubt that Bouguereau was one of the most talented painters of his time.
Bouguereau received many honours in the 1860s and '70s as his career progressed; he
exhibited regularly at the Salon for several decades and became for a time the most famous
French painter of his day.
As a proponent of official orthodoxy in painting, he played a major role in the exclusion of the
works of the Impressionists and other experimental painters from the Salon. He exerted a wide
influence, not only in France but in other countries, particularly the United States.

BOUGUEREAU, William-Adolphe, Featured Paintings in Detail

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