William Adolphe Bouguereau

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Self-portrait, 1886

William Adolphe Bouguereau [ vijɑ̃ adɔlf buɡø'ʁo ] (also Adolphe-William Bouguereau ; born November 30, 1825 in La Rochelle ( Département Charente-Maritime ); †  August 19, 1905 ibid) was a French painter of the 19th century and is considered to be Master of Academic Classicism and Classical Realism .

Life

Bouguereau was the son of the wine merchant Théodore Bouguereau (* 1800) and his wife Marie Bonnin (* 1804) and had two younger sisters. The family came from Bordeaux and had English roots.

In 1932 the family settled in Saint-Martin-de-Ré (Département Charente-Maritime). In 1837, at the age of twelve, Bouguereau came to see his uncle, a priest, in Montagne. Two years later he decided that Bouguereau should be trained as a priest at the Catholic College of Pons (Charente-Maritime) . It was at this college that Bouguereau received his first artistic instruction from Louis Sage .

His family had meanwhile settled in Bordeaux and brought him back to their home. Through the business of his family, Bouguereau soon made the acquaintance of Charles Marionneau (1823-1896), who enabled him to attend the city drawing school from the winter of 1841. Of the many drawings that were made there, only one survived to this day. In March 1846, Bouguereau went to Paris to attend the École des Beaux-Arts . At the same time, he took courses in anatomy and archeology and was interested in a. for historical costumes and uniforms.

During this time, the painter François-Édouard Picot took him on as a student in his studio and promoted Bouguereau in academic painting . In 1850 Bouguereau won the Prix ​​de Rome and was able to stay between 1851 and 1854 in the Villa Medici of the Académie de France à Rome . He reached Rome in January 1851 and used his stay there to travel extensively to Naples, Capri, Amalfi and Pompeii. In April 1854 he returned to France and settled in Paris.

In the following year, Bouguereau was invited to take part in the annual exhibitions of the Salon de Paris and at the World Exhibition in 1855 he was able to present some of his pictures.

Honors

plant

The Wave (1896)

Bouguereau mainly painted allegories on classical and historical subjects. In the nudes, which were based on classical Greek models or their Roman copies, Bouguereau nevertheless tried to bring the "original images" to life. In his “ Birth of Venus ” (La naissance de Vénus) from 1879, for example, he intensified the movements of the body and emphasized the curves of the hips a little more than was the case with the model - Aphrodite of Cyrene (Rome, thermal bath museum). The result of these small changes, which increased the erotic charisma of “Venus”, was well received by the audience. At the same time, thanks to the ancient model, he was above any moralizing criticism.

Among his subjects, he said he would never a war paint - but probably under some circumstances the war (as an allegorical figure). As for his perfected, realistic painting technique, he once stated that the secret to being a good painter is "to see color and line as the same thing". With this statement he stood out from the academic hardliners , for whom the line always had priority over the color.

photos

  • Dante and Virgil in Hell - Dante et Virgile en enfer (1850)

  • Tobias says 'goodbye' to his father - Tobias disant au-revoir à son père (1860)

  • At the edge of the brook - Au bord du Ruisseau (1875)

  • The Birth of Venus - La naissance de Vénus (1879)

  • Aurora (1881)

  • The Night (1883)

  • Hemera (1881)

  • The Knicks - La révérence (1898)

  • The older sister - La soeur aînée (1869)

Student (selection)

Bouguereau taught at the Académie Julian , and one of his students was Henri Matisse , who later advocated basic artistic training at his own Académie Matisse as a teacher . Other students were:

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : William-Adolphe Bouguereau  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A pupil of the painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
personal data
SURNAME Bouguereau, William Adolphe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bouguereau, Adolphe-William (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH La Rochelle
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1905
Place of death La Rochelle