William Adolphe Bouguereau: Revising a Reputation

Kesheena Doctor
Art211
Bilyeu
04.05.2013

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William Adolphe Bouguereaus 1881 painting Eventail naturel- Jeune fille et enfant
(Natural Fan- Girl with a Child), is a 3.5ft. x 4ft. oil on canvas portrait of two siblings, a young
girl and toddler boy (see fig.1). The two siblings are depicted in nature, playing in the woodlands
next to a pond. The figures take up a large amount of the canvas, almost entirely encompassing
the foreground with the wooded landscape behind disappearing into shades of black. On the right
side of the painting, the girl in a sitting position leans over the little boy reclining in a bed of
grass on the left foreground of the painting. The girl holds the broken tip of a tree branch in one
hand at the boys elbow as he turns his head towards the viewer, away from the leaves with his
hands raised over his face. The boys arms shield much of the girls actions, but the paintings
title infers the girl intends to fan or tickle him with the leaves. Bouguereaus Eventail naturel
portrays the bond and purity of siblings and the capriciousness of children at play.
Eventail naturel, which currently resides at the European art wing of the Portland Art
Museum, is a prime example of a Bouguereau painting, with the artists highly detailed attention
to form, coloring, and thoughtful portrayals of childhood and nature using the Classical school of
painting as his guide. Though Bouguereau is an exemplary artist whose adherence to and
reverence for traditional painting techniques and dogged work ethic allowed him to become a
painting virtuoso primarily in terms of coloring technique and composition, he has been
consistently castigated by critics, both then and now, for his overly perfect paintings and
indulgence of sentimentality.1 A thorough investigation of the elements that comprise Eventail
naturel will demonstrate that Bouguereaus carefully crafted, unique, and creative techniques
derived from his study of acknowledged masters in the established institution of the French
school of painting, the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. The Academie laid the

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foundations for Bouguereaus lifelong quest to render his beloved subjects to such a degree as to
be seen as the perfect ideal. Eventail naturel is a definitive painting of a hardworking and
dedicated painting disciple who utilized masterful composition, impeccable lighting, life-like
coloring, and an appreciation for his subject matter to transcend the persistent and misleading
reputation of a sentimental and talentless painter confined to the Classical painting tradition that
critics have unjustly but continually deride William Bouguereau for.
At the time of Bouguereaus career painting was wholly dictated by the Academie.
Aspiring painters followed the standard arrangement of going to private studios, or ateliers, of
established members of the Academie whereupon these new students were formally accepted
into the Academie on the recommendation of their new masters. The young painters would then
be instructed in the Academie's style; mastering the drawing technique was the primary focus in
developing the student as Albert Boime notes in his book on the Academies instruction style,
the organization of instruction in the private studios consisted of four major divisions:
elementary drawing lessons, drawing and painting after the live model, compositional study in
the form of sketches and copying" (24). The Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts emphasized
drawing ability to fully render a composition since it was widely accepted that this was the only
aspect of painting that could be taught .2 The primary goal of the ateliers was to prepare students
to enter the Prix-de-Rome competition, a one-year residency in Rome to study Classical and
Renaissance art, securing a students future as a successful and well-reputed painter. Bouguereau
excelled in mastering the Academic methodology and won the Prix-de-Rome 4 years after
joining the atelier of Academie member Francois-Edouard Picot.

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The Academies approach to the painting procedure was also markedly different from
most modern and contemporary practices with painters using a meticulous prepatory drawing
and sketching process before the painting was realized, as Boime details in his book:
During the preliminary steps the artist usually proceeded first with the croquis, then with
the painted sketch, and finally with the ebauche. The French artist also made preliminary
studies of individual details, such as drapery details or hands. These smaller studies,
either painted or drawn, were called etudes. In executing his final work, he first arranged,
in order, his croquis, his sketch, and his etudes (81).
Drawing was considered crucial to the success of the painting and William Bouguereau, a devout
adherent to the Academies teaching, was assiduous in utilizing the function of the prepatory
sketches. Bouguereau dedicated many hours to the prepatory process to execute the greatest
arrangement of his paintings, often creating dozens of sketches to further develop the
composition and rudimentary modeling of the individual elements within it (Elliot), as seen
with one of his prepatory sketches for A Young Girl Defending Herself against Eros (fig. 2).
Bouguereau would create multiple drawings of the approved subject: the croquis, or rough sketch
or thumbnail sketch, was used to formulate the idea; the esquisse, or outline, was a color sketch
to realize the color harmony; the etude, or studies, of which Bouguereau had many, where
drawings of specific elements of the composition such as hands or feet; the grisaille, or charcoal
and chalk sketches to determine shadow placement; the dessin, which guided the structural
design and perfect the composition; the ebauche that went directly on the canvas to guide the
painter once the actual realization of the painting began, and finally the fini, which was the actual
painting process.3 The final product, as seen with the painting A Young Girl Defending Herself

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against Eros (fig. 3.), demonstrates how the sketching process was crucial in assisting a painter
in actualizing a superior painting.
The employment of the Academies teachings is easily seen in the composition of
Eventail naturel, a highly executed painting that bears the mark of the Bouguereau approach of
creating multiple etudes and other drawing studies to realize a superior painting. In Eventail
naturel girl's and boys bodies form a large triangle a little to the left center of the composition,
emphasizing their importance and focal point to the viewer. There are three strongly implied
lines that form the rest of the composition, emitting calm tones: a strong vertical line on the left
of the painting, marked by a cluster of trees; a soft vertical line on the right that manifests an
implied light stretching from the edge of the pond to the trees in the background; a clear
horizontal line that delineates the ground from the trees, expressed in greens, browns, and
yellows implying grass; and a mixture of blacks and greens that suggest a shadowy forest.
Bouguereau also took great care in composing the youths body positions so that the
greatest illusion of movement is achieved. His artistry at this technique has been noted in
appraisals of his other works, as Gerald Ackerman remarks in his article, Like the masters of the
high renaissance he builds compositions out of the movement of strong, well rounded bodies,
whose authoritative presence fills the canvasses with energy (248). In Eventail naturel, the
boy's hands, slightly crossed are raised above his head and create three parallel lines, suggesting
movement. His legs also evoke a sense of action, particularly his right leg, which lies extended
but slightly bent, forming an acute parallel line. The girl has her left arm outstretched creating a
strong vertical line at the foreground of the painting, giving the work a three dimensional quality
while also creating a sense of movement. Conversely, the girl's pose creates a mini triangle with
her back, outstretched arm, and legs folded beneath her, making her the stronger focal point.

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Bouguereau also cleverly lined up the girl's outstretched arm and the boys bent left leg,
reinforcing the two subjects connection with one another. Bouguereau often painted siblings to
highlight his regard for the familial for his "paintings of children allowed for the expressions of
values that formed, for the painter, the very heart of his philosophy of life: youthful hope, the
warmth of the family circle, fraternal love (Bouguereau 68). Bouguereaus compositions
displayed his regard for sibling relations and esteem for youth; and the use of light in Eventail
naturel reinforces this.
Eventail naturels main light source comes from a point above the center of the painting,
shining almost directly down on the boy and girl. The girl's hair is illuminated as she leans over
the boy, creating a halo effect and asserting her innocence. The lighting on the girl's white shirt
and arms emphasize her as a stronger focal point, stressing her importance within the
composition. The lighting, creating a mood that associates childhood with the ideal,
counterpoints the critics assertions that Bouguereau was being overly sentimental. Instead it has
the reverse effect, as Robert Isaacson states in his appraisal of Bouguereaus work,
Bouguereaus perfect finish, polished surface and pearly tone that bathed everything he
observed in a unified vision, had the effect of distancing sentiments and emotions through
technique (Amaya 5). There are two other points of light in the painting; to the left in the cluster
of trees, a vertical light provides a three dimensional quality through the illusion of depth. The
light on this tree cluster helps emphasize the beauty of nature, and suggest that it is also innocent
and pure like the children. On the far right, there is a vertical light source that illuminates the
detail in the background. Bouguereaus placement of this light source on the right eliminates any
negative space from the painting, creating more of a visual stimulus for the viewer. Together,
both light sources act as points to frame and unify the picture and center the viewers focus on

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the two children.

Critics considered lighting one of Bouguereaus weakest qualities for he never catches
the accidental gleams and shades of light simmering through the interstices of green foliage . . .
in a conventional landscape laid out with a French gardeners exactitude (W.A. Bouguereau
147). Eventail naturel clearly does not have the lighting of a conventional landscape. The light
shines as one would imagine it would in a meadow shrouded by trees; light filters through
openings in the trees above in no discernible order and trickles down upon leaves, shrubbery,
grass, and the siblings. Bouguereau had a greenhouse affixed to his painting studio and an
outdoor studio in his garden at home to serve as reference points for the details of flora that
almost always were a component of his compositions, and better serve his strive for life-like
representations in his work.4
Bouguereau spent much time in constructing the lighting scheme in his paintings, and
much like the procedures for realizing the lineal composition of the painting, these sketches were
integral in the final realization of a highly executed painting like Eventail naturel, as stated
below:
The oil sketches, grisailles, and compositional studies in vine charcoal served as means
for determining appropriate color harmonies and for the spotting of lights and darks.
Like the croquis, these were usually executed from imagination and yielded a fairly
abstract pattern of colors and greys upon which the artist would later superimpose his
observations from nature (Bouguereau 73).
The attention to the lighting and composition in Eventail naturel was due to the Academic
sketching process Bouguereau ascribed to and was vital in attaining the beautiful color schema in
his painting.

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Bouguereau's use of color was and is still considered his most notable attribute as a
painter and was an invention all his own.5 The Academie focused only on drawing, a task that
was considered teachable, whereas color "was not taught, - it was considered a highly personal
matter, as the study of the old masters demonstrated. Colorists are born, not made (Amaya 8).
The youths of Eventail naturel are bathed in saturated colors to emphasize their liveliness and
draw the viewer to them. The young girls clothing is adorned in rich hues of lavender and teal
with a burgundy headband that are complemented by the saturated colors of a white shirt and
black tunic. The rich and striking colors bounce off one another, pulling one towards her. She is
the epitome of youthful energy.
In contrast the boy wears no clothes. His nudity gives him an innocence that differs from
that of the girl, cherubic in quality and impressing ideas of purity with the attention to body
coloring evoking a bloom of the child's cheeks, hands, and hair. Saturated pinks adorn the child's
face, giving a flushed effect, as if he were laughing. His hands also have saturated pinks and
some reds blended into the muted whites to signify movement, almost as if the boy were pushing
away the leaves from a branch the girl holds near his face. His hair is a multihued layer of
browns, yellows, and orange, in an array of contrasting levels of saturation to give his hair depth,
shine, and life. The attention to hair alone displays Bouguereaus affection and veneration of
children, particularly the male child of Eventail naturel. A beloved grandson, Willie, had been
born just over a year prior to this painting. Willie was used as a model for many of Bouguereaus
later paintings and the boy model of Eventail naturel may indeed have been Bouguereaus
grandson. Willie was specifically noted for his little face and fair, curly hair (Bartoli 274). The
similarities to the boy in Eventail naturel and Bouguereaus grandson are palpable.
Girl and toddler have skin that is beautifully blended in an almost milky white hue, with

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some light blue tint added to give the appearance of veins, and soft pinks added in areas, giving
shape and warmth to emulate the flesh. Bouguereau excelled at this visual, having spent much
time refining his techniques, which Virgil Elliot elaborates on in detail:
In some of his later paintings at least, Bouguereau painted lighter areas somewhat thinly
over the dried, darker undertone, producing a scumble effect--that is, a complex optical
sensation in which light, opaque paint, thinly applied so as to read semiopaque, allows
the dried, darker underpaint to influence the final effect. The resulting sensation, if
properly done, is that of increased coolness of color temperature, softness of texture, and
a translucent quality very much like that of the youthful skin of light-complected women
and children. Bouguereau applied the lighter lights and highlights heavily enough to
approach or reach true opacity in the flesh tones, with a degree of translucence evident in
certain places in the darker middletones, and more so in the shadows. The effect, for
which Bouguereau is renowned, is that of actual human skin, which is itself translucent in
reality (Elliot).
This technique of giving the skin flesh-like quality, also extends the effect of chiaroscuro, the
emulation of three-dimensional qualities through light and shadows. This is seen readily on the
girls arms and more overtly on the boy's naked body, giving the life like shape that
complements the flesh tones.
The paintings background conversely highlights the subjects with darker and more
subdued colors. Bouguereaus execution of the background is as important as the figures
themselves, though there is less detail to draw the eye away from the subjects. The landscape has
many unsaturated pastels of browns, greens, yellows, whites, and soft blacks, emitting an
ethereal, dreamy quality to Eventail naturel. The soft blacks are used to emulate the shadows of

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a forest, giving the composition depth. The cluster of trees to the left of the painting has many
shades of green and muted browns adding dimension and contrasting with the blacks that cluster
in the center of the piece, further enhancing the illusion of depth and framing the children. The
grass in the foreground is also filled with greens and browns in a pastel hue that outlines the
bodies of the children. Bouguereau emphasizes certain aspects of the landscape with saturated
hues of yellow in specific spots like the lip of the pond, the leaves of the cluster of trees, and
most notably, the heavily saturated yellow on the grass underneath the head of the boy. This use
of color creates an illusion of light and sustains the overall mood and purpose of the painting in
highlighting the bond between the siblings.
A significant amount of Bouguereaus work is centered around the theme of familial
bonds, most commonly with depictions of siblings and mothers and children. Although
Bouguereau was a disciple of the Academie, only the earliest years of his career were
significantly marked by the schools preference of the favored historical subject and style most
clearly represented in the works of Jacques-Louis David, one of the Academies pioneers of the
Classical style. Bouguereau eventually focused on more romantic themes though he never
strayed from the accepted subjects of Classical painting: the mythological as seen with one of his
most applauded works, Nymphs and Satyrs (see fig. 4); the religious, as seen with Pieta; and the
peasantry were favored as seen with The Nut Gatherers (see fig. 5), beginning his misleading
reputation as a genre painter, or the painting of common life.6 As Mario Amaya notes in his
book, by the 1860s the restraints of Classical subject matter were more liberal and peasant
subjects were readily understood as an extension of classical subject-matter (13), allowing for
Academie painters, like Bouguereau, to expand their subject matter. Though Bouguereau
retained the tenets and methodical execution of his Academie training, his style and choice in

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subject matter grew looser and he matured into the artist that could produce such a work as
Eventail naturel.
This transition in the Academies standards and shift in Bouguereaus work also
coincided with his rising popularity among patrons and the general public. The painters work,
particularly his mythological paintings and genre paintings, were well received by the public and
afforded him great wealth since Bouguereau was a prolific painter creating an estimated 700
works in his lifetime.7 Women and children are the one constant in his repertoire; these subjects
appearing again and again over his long and prolific career. Youth were a constant pleasure for
him to paint and the style and techniques he developed wholly complemented the lifelike
renderings he sought to achieve in his subject with a care and empathy that Bouguereau felt was
crucial. Bouguereau attests, Before starting work, steep yourself in your subject; if you dont
fully understand it, seek further or turn to something else. Remember that everything must be
thought out beforehand, everything, down to the smallest details (Bouguereau 67). For
Bouguereau, an understanding and empathy for the subject was crucial.
At the time of Eventail naturels creation, Bouguereau had lost three children and his first
wife; a severe blow to a dedicated family man.8 Although he was known to have expressed his
grief in religious painting (Ackerman 248), one can assume his feelings spilled over into other
paintings especially where children were concerned. Bouguereaus endearing attitudes towards
children are evident; critics and viewers have observed the painter showing great affection
towards the children that posed for him, even playing with them. He had just completed a
drawing of some children, but as he had romped with them all the time, some one asked when he
had found time to work (The Art of Adolph William Bouguereau 84). Bouguereau
compensated for the loss of his family while also displaying his affection for children in many of

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his paintings, particularly where children were concerned.

The era in which he produced his work, the late 19th century, also led to his disrepute.
Innovations in art were unfolding at an astronomical rate and supporters and disciples of the old
school, like Bouguereau, were dismissed. A great believer in the Academie and its teachings,
Bouguereau routinely defended the Academie, both in his paintings and publicly. In a speech
Bouguereau gave extolling the virtues of Academic training, he said:
One can always acquire the additional knowledge that goes into the production of a work
of art, but never, and I insist on this point, can will, perseverance or obstinacy ever make
up at a later age for inadequate practice. And can one conceive anguish like that felt by
the artist who feels the realization of his dream compromised by the impotence of its
execution? (Amaya 9).
Although Bouguereau was renowned for his work ethic, he attributed his skill to the Academies
training, clearly associating himself to the waning institution. This unwavering allegiance to the
Academie ultimately ensured his own fate as a dated painter and spurred his decline in popularity
Curiously enough, though critics scorned him and he eventually lost favor with the
public, practically vanishing from art history, universally celebrated painters applauded his work.
Painters such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Edgar Degas, were supporters of
Bouguereaus paintings. Degas, in particular, was quite taken with the Bouguereau work ethic, as
he wrote in a letter to a friend about his working habits, You see, my friend, I get home and
there I sink myself into a routine like no one elses (except, perhaps, Bouguereaus), but Im not
sure that I can manage to sustain it (Bouguereau 47). Degas, an Impressionist painter and
contemporary of Bouguereau's, but very much a proponent of the Academie, respected this
supposed rival. Though the two diverged wildly in painting style and technique, as seen with

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Degas pastel work At the Milliners (see fig. 6), both painters emphasized the virtues of drawing
("Degas, Hilaire Germain Edgar"). Degas early Academic instruction instilled a great respect for
Bouguereau, who often took the Academie's painting instruction of drawing to the ideal.
It seems that Bouguereaus irreproachable skill was his greatest failure in creating
accessibility of his artistic vision for critics and his artistic contemporaries alike. As attested by
one of Bouguereaus most consistent critics of the era, Edmond About recognized this oversight
to perfection after a viewing of a Bouguereau painting:
Let him who is without sin cast the first at me! I fear I have not always been fair to M.
Bouguereau. . . To tell the truth, M. Bouguereau does not lack genius. Nature and
education have provided him with all the gifts necessary to make a complete artist. He
can paint, he can draw an excellent figure, he handles draperies with pure, refined taste.
His painting is solid and his colors agreeable; indeed everything he does, he does well.
His subjects are carefully rendered, with no affectation of sentimentality, from head to
toe. We spend our time singing the praises of new painters who, on the whole, are not
worth one little sketch by M. Bouguereau. This may be due to the fact that individual
qualities are easier to detect when isolated in the midst of blundering, clumsy efforts. The
closer a work comes to perfection, the harder it is to pick out its merits, because they are
fused with the beauty of the whole. M. Bouguereau is a true artist, one of the most
accomplished in Paris (Bouguereau 170).
Over time more and more critics of Bouguereau, like About, have reevaluated their evaluation of
his work, but grudgingly so.
The disdain for Bouguereaus work started in his life time when Classical painting fell
out of favor in the art world, with French critics initiating the callous critique of his work that

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eventually crossed overseas to the United States, where Bouguereau had previously received his
greatest accolades, both monetary and critical. As Mario Amaya describes in his book,
Bouguereaus poor critical reputation remained unchanged in France. The American art writers
carried on the negative trend, started in his lifetime, by translating and paraphrasing the French
critics. . . A great popular success, yes, but his work would never trouble the critics again (17).
Though Bouguereau continued to sell paintings well after his death, his reputation as a mediocre
painter clinging to a dying art style's doctrines was well established.
Much criticism of Bouguereau centered on his paintings being overly sentimental. Rather
than focusing on the flawless technical skill and in hastily assessing the emotion, critics
consequently overlooked the meaning. Like the other Bouguereau masterpieces, Nymphs and
Satyr (1873), Young Girl Defending Herself against Eros (1880), and The Nut Gatherers (1882),
Eventail naturel is a love letter to all that encompasses youth and beauty. Indeed, recent
exhibition reviews of Bouguereau comment on the failure of the art world in recognizing his
greatness as a painter, as Ackerman notes to critical response in a major exhibition of
Bouguereaus work, that some of us were apprehensive about the effect of a large Bouguereau
exhibition; we did not know that he was a great painter (Ackerman 248). Bouguereau is
universally ridiculed for his choice in subject matter though none can decry his masterful
technicality, and was considered by his contemporaries as being the greatest painter of his
time(Elliot), on those merits alone, regardless of what he painted.
Using the Academies approach to painting both in technique and ideology, Bouguereau
sought an ideal in his paintings, choosing subjects like the children of Eventail naturel as
representatives of pillars of the highest human endeavors. Bouguereau worked resolutely in
perfecting his technique to adequately embody the exalted through painting. All mechanical

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aspects of his chosen media were crucial in these efforts to achieve the perfected ideal. As
Bouguereau himself said in regards to painting, think about the drawing, the color, the
composition - when you work you must consider all these things equally (Bouguereau 67).
Bouguereaus style encapsulated what the Academie strove for; to uphold art's tradition of
inspiring the masses with immaculate representations of beauty. Bouguereau was successful in
upholding the Academies standards, though his peers often never appreciated his work, a
problem noted by Bartoli's research on Bouguereau:
Bouguereau's works are far from winning the plaudits of an art establishment that has
grown accustomed to the bitterness and nihilism of modernity. . . This master's work has
never failed to attract the immediate unabashed love of the overwhelming majority of the
public, whether in his own time or today (452).
Bouguereaus paintings are beautiful; with the public admiring the paintings the most, both then
and now, for their artistry in rendering the ideal and also for their sentiment, or emotion evoked.
Eventail naturel is not noted in major sources documenting Bouguereaus oeuvre, but
should be as it was created in what is generally considered the artists peak. Bouguereaus work
deserves to be reappraised by art critics and painters, particularly since the methodology of the
Academie is lost today and it would be impossible that a new artist could produce a
Bouguereau because the methods of Bouguereaus training had been for so long discarded
(Bouguereau 17-18). The technical elements that he used during this period are present in
Eventail naturel, giving a highly posed, superbly polished, and technically exaggerated rendering
of the subjects, transcending notions of reality into the ideal. Luckily for the art world,
Bouguereau ignored his critics and did what he loved most, letting his work, Eventail naturel
among them, speak for itself.

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Fig. 1. Bouguereau, William. Eventail naturel- Jeune fille et enfant. 1881. Oil on canvas.
Portland Art Museum: Portland, Oregon. Bartoli, Damien, and William A. Bouguereau. William
Bouguereau: His Life and Works. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 2010. 211. Print.

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Fig.2. Bouguereau, William. Loves Resistance. 1885. Black chalk & opaque watercolor. Fine
Arts Museums of San Francisco: San Francisco. ARTstor. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

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Fig. 3. Bouguereau, William. A Young Girl Defending Herself against Eros. 1880. Oil on canvas.
The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center: Los Angeles. ARTstor. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

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Fig. 4. Bouguereau, William. Nymphs and Satyr. 1873. Oil on canvas. Sterling and Francine
Clark Art Institute: Williamstown, MA. ARTstor. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

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Fig. 5. Bouguereau, William. The Nut Gatherers. 1882. Oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts:
Detroit, Michigan. ARTstor. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

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Fig. 6. Degas, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar. At the Milliner's. 1881. Pastel on five pieces of wove
paper, backed with paper and laid down on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: New
York. ARTstor. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

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Notes
1. Except for Elliot, all the sources used for this essay denigrate Bouguereaus choice in
subject, particularly emphasizing the abhorred peasant girls and also deride him for his hyperpolished paintings.
2. Drawing was almost exclusively taught in the Academie since it was thought to be
correctable. A painter was expected to do many sketches, or ebauches, in multiple mediums as a
prepatory step in producing a painting. Color was not taught as it was considered personal and
inherently unique to the painter. Bouguereau received formal education from the Academie and
was a staunch supporter of its traditions. Wissman gives a succinct account of the Academies
purpose in her book (10).
3. Elliots article elaborates on Bouguereaus meticulous drawing process and how
Bouguereau's technique combines elements of the Flemish, Venetian, and French Academic
methods with what are probably innovations of his own. The result was the most sophisticated
oil-painting technique developed to that point (Elliot). Mark Steven Walkers essay in William
Bouguereau, 1825-1905, also note Bouguereaus sketch work, and Boimes book also provides
the meaning of some of the French terms.
4. Walkers essay in William Bouguereau, 1825-1905 gives a detailed account of the
artists methods, a layout of his Paris studio, quotes from Bouguereau concerning his working
life, and quotes from spectators on the painters work habits. Elliots essay on Bouguereau also
comments on his propensity to sketch from real life and notes his usage of a greenhouse and
employment of real models to render the most life-like subjects in his paintings.
5. Bouguereaus techniques were often regarded as being perfect by both critics and
painters alike, but his coloring is often lauded more than either his composition or drawing. Both

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Elliots essay and passages in William Bouguereau, 1825-1905 work (see Walker essay, p. 76)
are specific to his coloring techniques.
6. Amaya further discusses the history of peasantry painting and its ties to Classical
painting. Given that Bouguereau painted largely during the height of Industrialization, the idea of
the peasantry, like nature, were probably given more emphasis as a Classical concept, especially
when faced with modernity and the rapidly changing normalitys of life, peasantry would appear
antiquated, and thusly, Classical.
7. There is some debate over Bouguereaus exact output, since no accurate records were
kept. Conservative estimates place the number in the 400s, but do not take into consideration the
many reduction paintings, private paintings for friends and family, the landscape paintings he did
for personal pleasure, and the early paintings of his youth.
8. Bouguereau was a dedicated family man. In a letter he wrote to his wife, Nelly, at a
time of separation, his affections for his family and wife are palpable:
I often imagine I hear and see you, in this house far too large for me alone. . . I can
almost see Granny and dear Paupaul; what wouldnt I give to hear dear Henriette play a
tune on the piano, to retch one of the little ones from the Lyce or the Panthon, to be
able to embrace all of you and you especially, my poor dear wife. When will these happy
time be with us again? (Bouguereau 51).

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Works Cited
Ackerman, Gerald. William Bouguereau. Paris. The Burlington Magazine 126.973 (1984):
247-249. JStor. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
Amaya, Mario, William A. Bouguereau, and Robert Isaacson. William Adolphe Bouguereau: ...
Exhibition ... Organized by Mario Amaya, the New York Cultural Center, in Association
with Fairleigh Dickinson University, 13 December 1974 to 2 February 1975: Catalogue
and Selection. New York: The Center, 1975. Print.
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February-6 May 1984, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 22 June-23 September 1984,
the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 27 October 1984-13 January 1985. Montreal:
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2012.

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Wissman, Fronia E. Bouguereau. San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1996. Print.