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布格霍1
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Adolphe William Bouguereau,
b. Nov. 30, 1825, d. Aug. 19, 1905, had a long, successful career
as an academic painter, exhibiting in the annual Paris Salons for
more than 50 years. His paintings of religious, mythological, and
genre subjects were carefully composed and painstakingly finished.
Thus he opposed the admission of works by the impressionists to the
Salon, because he believed that their paintings were no more than
unfinished sketches. After a period of neglect following his death,
Bouguereau's paintings were returned to view as part of a renewed
interest in and reappraisal of academic painting and of Ecole des
Beaux-Arts works in general. A major retrospective exhibition opened in Paris and was seen in Montreal and Hartford, Conn., in 1984. As a young man, Bouguereau put himself through the Ecole des Beaux-Arts by keeping books for a wine merchant and coloring lithographic labels for a local grocer. In his spare time, late in the evening, he created drawings from memory. This diligence and discipline resulted in an extrordinarily productive artistic life. Bouguereau produced more than seven hundred finished works and achieved a remarkable level of public acclaim and financial success. He never forgot his difficult early days, however; working secretly, he assisted young artists who were struggling as he had to pursue an artistic career in the face of financial difficulties. Like many painters of the second half of the 19th century, Bouguereau made a careful study of form and technique and steeped himself in classical sculpture and painting. True to his serious and industrious nature, he worked deliberately and industriously: before beginning a painting he would master the history of his subject and complete numerous sketches. The tenderness with which he portrayed children and domestic scenes, his technical skill and passion for the classics, and his love of rich color are hallmarks of Bouguereau's exquisite paintings. |
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