William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825. 11. 30—1905. 8. 19) was born in La Rochelle, France, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. He showed his artist talent early on. As an academic painter, Bouguereau’s complete works were entirely within the traditional Academic style, but he opened many art institutions to women, it is not traditional. Bouguereau’s complete paintings were exhibited at the annual exhibited of the Paris Salon for his entire working life. An early reiewer stated, ”M. Bouguereau has a natural instinct and knowledge of contour. The eurythmie of the human body preoccupies him, and in recalling the happy results which, in this genre, the ancients and the artists of the sixteenth century arrived at, one can only congratulate M. Bouguereau in attempting to follow in their footsteps…Raphael was inspired by the ancients…and no one accused him of not being original. ”Bouguereau took this review as a high compliment for Raphael was a favorite of him.
The French artist Bouguereau was both a French academic painter and traditionalist, he used mythological themes in his realistic genre paintings. He made modern interpretations of classical subjects, and often with an emphasis on the female body. He was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world as an Academic painter by his art community. The French artist Bouguereau was reviled by the avant garde simultaneously, and gained wide fame not only in France, but in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States as well, and they were commanded high prices. His career was close to a direct ascent with hardly a setback, it might be the reason why the French artist Bouguereau’s complete works were epitomized refinement and a respect for tradition to many people. But to others who were against him, he was a competent technician stuck in the past, with high skill but not a new trend of The Times.
He began to teach drawing at the Academic Julian in 1875, a coed art institution to women independently of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, with no entrance exams and with nominal fees. In 1877, both his wife and his infant son died of a difficult labour. Then he was married for the second time in 1896 with one of his students. As a French artist, he opened many French art institutions to women for the first time by the inspiration and influence from his wife. In the spring of 1905, Bouguereau’s house and studio in Paris were burgled. On August 19, 1905, he finally died of heart disease in his hometown La Rochelle at the age of 79. Near the end of Bouguereau’s life, he described his love of his art:”Each day I go to my studio full of joy, in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarely wait for the next morning to come…If I cannot give myself to my dear paintings I am miserable. ”
Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau’s complete works executed 822 known paintings he finished, although the whereabout of many are still unknown…He is a great traditional Academic painter but also showed his recpect to women by opened art institutions to women so that gained more respects. Bouguereau is still so respectable and his paintings still arrest people’s eyes that we are necessarily carrying them forward!No matter which reproduction paintings of Bouguereau’s complete works you want to keep, our artist are able to copy all of them for you 100% paint by hand on canvas. And we are looking forward to your requests !