WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU THE ESSENTIAL WORKS
C. Ross & Kara Lysandra Ross
Frederick
Lady10 Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema. The Persistent Reader, 1888. Oil on panel, 58.42 x 44.5cm (23 x 17½in.) Private collection.
By the final three decades of his life, William Bouguereau (1825–1905) was the most famous artist in France, and his fame extended across Europe and America. He was a known fighter for justice and equality, donating considerable amounts of time to help the poor and the unfortunate. He won almost every honour, award and accolade available to a French painter during his lifetime, starting with the Prix de Rome in 1850. He became a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1875 and was one of the longest-serving members of the Institut National des Sciences et des Arts, referred to simply as the Institut (Institute), from 1876 until his death in 1905. In 1885 Bouguereau served as president of the Institut, presiding over all five of its academies. In this same year, Bouguereau was elected president of the benevolent association founded by Baron Isidore Taylor, whose goal was to accumulate funds to help support less-fortunate artists and their families. At the funeral of Victor Hugo, the most beloved poet and writer in France, Bouguereau was chosen to give a graveside eulogy as he was as revered for painting as Hugo was for literature.1 He was one of the head instructors at the Académie Julian, where he was instrumental in the addition of courses for aspiring women artists (previously excluded from all such French courses), and he became the chairman of the Société des Artistes Français. He was a jury member for the Exposition Universelle of 1889 and 1900 and finally Grand Officier in the Légion d’Honneur in 1903. To better understand the significance of William Bouguereau and what he meant to nineteenthcentury art, this introductory section will examine art in France during the nineteenth century and the corresponding importance of his aforementioned achievements.Inthemiddle of the nineteenth century, political and social upheavals inspired by the revolutions in America and France spread across Europe. As a result, art in the first half of the century was very different to that in the second. The world of the Paris Salon, the annual art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and the types of works shown became liberalised in 1849 and there was a transformation in thinking amongst artists at this time.2 In England, there was the birth of the middle class that emerged from industrialisation and significant increases in international trade, starting at the end of the eighteenth century. From 1809 to 1839, imports almost doubled, growing from £28.7 million to £52 million, and exports tripled, from £25.4 million to £76 Themillion.3middle class in France also grew between 1815 and 1847 along with domestic and foreign commerce. This was in large part due to increasing advancements in all areas of communication and transportation, including newly invented technologies such as steam navigation, railways and the electric telegraph. Natural waterways were improved and heavy emphasis was placed on the building of new canals.4 Because of this strong economic and ideological shift, the figurative art from the first half of the nineteenth century tended to focus more on history whereas in the latter half, it focused on everyday life and popular fiction.5 With the newly acquired freedom to paint subjects other than historical and religious works, portraiture and the aristocracy, there was an explosion of new subject matter.Just as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and other masterpieces of the past brought to life scenes from the Bible, the later nineteenth-century masters not only addressed the social concerns of the time, but also brought to life scenes from the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the stories of Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, and ancient Greek and Roman subject matter. It is also
INTRODUCTION
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50 Autoportrait présenté à Monsieur Sage (Self-portrait given to M. Sage), 1886. 46 x 38cm (181⁄8 x 15in.) Private collection of Joseph Tanenbaum, Toronto, Canada.
PORTRAITS1. and the Capturing of Emotion
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In 1863, Bouguereau was commissioned by M. Brissac to paint a portrait of his daughter, Mademoiselle Pauline Brissac.4 The artist had already become sensitive to finger placement with his models,
In 1850, Bouguereau competed in and won the ‘Tête d’expression’ (Expressive Head) competition at the École des Beaux-Arts with his painting titled Tête d’expression: Le dédain. Capturing human emotion in a facial expression is no easy task, especially with an emotion as subtle as disdain. The subject’s downward glance as she looks over her cringing shoulders, her turned-down mouth and tense facial muscles all capture the essence of the emotion. One can imagine she has just heard some horrible gossip or perhaps she is being pursued by an unwanted suiter. This work would be kept for the museum of the École des Beaux-Arts, where it remains today.3
Most, if not all, academically trained artists will occasionally paint portraits. They are the bread and butter of an artist’s trade. This important genre first thrived 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt. Since then, it has always served as more than just a visual record and has been used to demonstrate power, importance, virtue, beauty, wealth or taste; but most importantly, portraits are intended to capture the soul of the sitter. When one thinks of Bouguereau, one’s first thoughts are likely not of traditional portraits. However, it is quite possible that one may think of his portrait-like paintings of peasants, of which there were many. Bouguereau did in fact paint quite a number of traditional portraits, some of which won him acclaim. Indeed, he created about 103 formal portraits, approximately 12 per cent of his total oeuvre. It is not hard to imagine that the most famous painter in all of France would have scores of wealthy individuals and figures of aristocratic descent clamouring at his door for a portrait commission. Nevertheless, Bouguereau did not take commissions often. Mostly, his portraits were of friends or family, or of his models. Many of his paintings of models would have been considered portraits had they been titled as such, and with their focus on the subtle facial expressions that make a portrait great, they have been included in this chapter rather than in the section on peasants. This chapter will therefore focus on Bouguereau’s formal portraits as well as the art of body language and nuanced facial expressions that reveal the psyche of the sitter. Most of Bouguereau’s earliest recorded works, from 1844 to 1847 (when he was aged 19 to 23), were portraits. During this time the artist was still actively engaged in his early studies. The portraits were mostly of people he knew, as he did not yet have the reputation to warrant important commissions. Instead, he visited family members and individuals in his local area, painting their portraits to gain both experience and funds that could be used towards his studies. Bouguereau painted 33 portraits before he left to study in Paris in 1846, but as the vast majority of these were unsigned, only two from this period are known to be by his hand.1 Others may surface over time, but he was reluctant to put his signature to these works; as a young student he did not feel he yet had the mastery to sign his name to them. In truth, these early works show a great amount of talent and advanced skill in the technical art of painting, accurately capturing his sitters and also carrying emotionalBetweenweight.1845 and 1860, from his earliest recorded work to just before his new style appeared, Bouguereau created 141 works. Of these, 59 were traditional portraits. From the remainder, there are a few recorded finished studies and 48 decorative commissions, including for Anatole François Bartholoni’s house in Paris and various churches. At this point in his career, portraits were the dominant type of painting being created by the artist.2
Portrait de son oncle, Adolphe Bouguereau (Portrait of his uncle, Adolphe Bouguereau), 1850. 56 x 45.5cm (22 x 177⁄8in.) Private collection, France.
Portrait de son oncle, Eugène Bouguereau (Portrait of his uncle, Eugène Bouguereau), 1850. 46 x 41cm (181⁄8 x 161⁄8in.)
Deuxieme portrait de Catherine Bouguereau (Second Portrait of Catherine Bouguereau), 1854. 100 x 80cm (393⁄8 x 31½in.) Private collection, France.
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Private collection, France.
Autoportrait (Self-portrait), 60.5 x 50cm (237 8 x 195⁄8in.) Collection of the artist’s heirs.
53 always finding interesting positions that were both graceful and flattering to the figure and composition. We can see Bouguereau has chosen to have the model extend the little finger on her left hand across the page, as if perhaps gesturing towards an illustration in a favourite book. In Portrait de Mademoiselle Brissac, Bouguereau gives the elegant sitter, approximately 12 years of age, the expression of a kind-hearted, gentle and innocent girl approaching adolescence. This was the first such work Bouguereau painted, tackling subject matter for which he would later become famous. Although this was a commissioned portrait, perhaps by luck or chance, Pauline had those qualities that Bouguereau would later seek in many of his models. It is no wonder then that a girl with similar qualities would appear in his 1864 painting of La soeur aînée. In 1864, Bouguereau created three very diverse portraits. He painted the head of one of his first students, Jean-Louis Pascal, who was a young handsome man with an intense and serious gaze. This artist and architect would become a life-long friend of Bouguereau, drawing up the plans for his home and studio in 1866 (see page 30).5 The second work was of Marie-Gabrielle Anne Marcotte de Quivières. Commissioned by her father, this portrait reveals a strong and inquisitive young woman. Although the pose of her hand on the table may not be as delicate
Portrait de G.J. Thomas, sculpteur (Portrait of G.J. Thomas, sculptor), 1854. 47 x 36cm (18½ x 141⁄8in.) Collection of the French Academy in Rome.
use94 of selective focus and collapsed colour values7 is key for the success of this work, allowing the 13 cupids in the background to recede from the viewer’s gaze and follow the cloud line as if they are a part of the sky. If Bouguereau had failed in this attempt, the painting would have likely felt busy and convoluted, but despite the busy composition, this change in value and focus allows the central and foreground figures to visually separate from the landscape, producing a triumphant success. One art critic of the time, Louis de Fourcaud, captured the overall response to the work, saying: M. Bouguereau is a man of rare talent, and no one acknowledges this more than I do. I do not know of anyone who is equal in constructing the lines of a composition; his skill in drawing is incomparable. Nothing can approach his artistic integrity. However, in his observation of nature, he is always the victim of his desire to improve on it … Prodigious skill and supreme awareness presided over the execution of this Painting.8 As with many iconic works, artists look to history for inspiration. There is something powerful about subjects and themes that have transcended time and still hold relevance throughout all of human existence. Love is one such human characteristic, integral to our species, which has been depicted throughout the history of art. There is something comforting about our shared lineages and states of existence, allowing for understanding and compassion through their exploration. It is commonly accepted that during antiquity, there was a renaissance in fine art in theatre, dance, sculpture, painting, literature, architecture and philosophy. It is not surprising that nineteenthcentury artists, and even artists today, look to this time period during their creative process. Cupid for the Romans and Eros for the Greeks were mythological gods symbolising love, and we see depictions of them re-emerge as common subjects during the nineteenth century. Although in earlier periods there was a manifestation of love in paintings, such as Caravaggio’s Amor Vincit Omnia (c.1601), it was not such a common theme. Paintings of Greek and Roman gods would have been considered heresy in the medieval period, and religious paintings depicting Christian iconography became predominant. We see Cupid-like figures represented with frequency within old master paintings, but usually as angels and putti versus the god of love. Bouguereau was painting at a time when the subjects depicted in fine art erupted with a diversity previously unseen. Cupid frequently reoccurs as a symbol of love in Bouguereau’s fancies, becoming a predominant icon for his works that fall into this category, and influencing the work of many of his students and contemporaries. The story of Cupid and Psyche was one of Bouguereau’s favourite myths, and he painted several works inspired by their legend. The tale of Cupid and Psyche first appears in The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius in the second century AD. In the story, Psyche is a beautiful princess, of whom the goddess Venus is jealous. In her rage,
95 Venus orders her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a monster, but Cupid falls in love with her himself. After several trials, Cupid and Psyche make their plea to the gods who turn Psyche into an immortal and allow them to be married in heaven. In Bouguereau’s L’Amour et Psyché, enfants (1889), he was inspired to paint the two lovers together as children, demonstrating that fate itself had a hand in their meeting. They were born to be together. Bouguereau’s subtle paint handling captures the children’s innocence and illustrates to the viewer that Cupid’s original attraction to Psyche was not purely physical, but also platonic, for the innocence of childhood does not allow for anything else. This painting is intended to demonstrate this concept of enduring love; you cannot have true love without also having mutual trust and respect within a relaxed and enduring companionship. Cupid and Psyche’s union is not just a physical one – they are soulmates and will complement each other eternally. This painting is a charming mirror to one of Bouguereau’s most iconic – and more romantic – works, Le ravissement de Psyché (1895). With Psyche finally in the arms of her love, the two ascend to heaven. The subtle use of colour is truly astonishing. The light and dark purples of the cloth surrounding Cupid and Psyche play beautifully against the purple-grey clouds and mountains. Bouguereau painted two other depictions of this scene, Psyché et l’Amour (1889) and L’Amour et Psyché (1899) This was not the end, however, for Bouguereau’s use of cupids, which appear repeatedly in the Apollon et les Muses dans l’Olympe (Apollo and the Muses in Olympus), 1869. Measurements unknown. Decoration for the concert hall of the Grand Théâtre in Bordeaux.
Bouguereau132 in his studio at work on Regina Angelorum (1899). Collection of the artist’s heirs
Bouguereau received many commissions for churches throughout France. His first was the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris, in 1856, for which he worked under the guidance of his former professor, François-Édouard Picot, who was supervising the entire project (which also involved several other artists). This commission was quickly followed by mural paintings for the chapel of Saint-Louis at Sainte-Clotilde, which were completed in 1860. In 1864 Bouguereau received a commission from the Church of Saint-Augustin in Paris to work on the chapels of Saint Paul and Saint Peter; a few months later he was awarded the commission to complete a third chapel, dedicated to Saint John. At the same time as undertaking this commission, he completed two paintings for the Salon of 1870, including his religious work Le Voeu à Sainte-Anne d’Auray, for which he received praise from critic Théophile Gautier: Le Voeu à Sainte-Anne depicts two little Breton Girls, aged about 14 or 15, kneeling, holding candles before the reliquary of Saint Anne. Although they are dressed in costume and bonnets of the locality, they have nothing in common with the paintings by those chauvinistic Breton painters for whom the entire world is contained between Saint-Pol-de-Léon and Quimperlé.
RELIGIOUS3.
William Bouguereau, although well known for his paintings of peasant girls and mythological scenes, has also become one of the most beloved religious painters of all time. As a devout Catholic, Bouguereau, like many religious painters, viewed his work as a form of worship both of God and of God’s most cherished creation, mankind. His love of Christ is clearly seen in his religious works, and no time or dedication were spared in their creation. He had ambitions to be known as a painter of religious subjects. He believed the purest tribute humanity could make to the Divine was the pursuit of beauty in the fine arts and he looked to his forefathers, the old masters, such as Michelangelo, Botticelli and Raphael as prime examples.1 Bouguereau had a gift for powerful emotional imagery, and he was no stranger to grief. He captured the look of death with frightening directness, having experienced the death of four of his five children over the course of his life. In his painting Premier deuil, for example, the dead body of Abel lies across Adam’s lap in the same manner as Christ is often depicted lying across Mary’s lap. Adam clutches his heart with grief and Eve kneels by his side, her face buried in her hands. Although this is a religious work, Bouguereau wanted to capture the tangible human experience of losing a child, emphasising this over the transcendence or holiness typically associated with such works. This makes the imagery more accessible to the viewer and evokes a greater sense of compassion. Religious individuals often turn to God in their time of need and many of Bouguereau’s religious works directly express scenes of grief, offering a form of comfort to others in this tangible, relatable format. His religious works number approximately 65 in total, making up about eight per cent of the artist’s complete oeuvre, and they often inspire hope, love and religious exaltation of the Divine.2
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WORKS
M. Bouguereau did not want to take the local color too far, but merely attempted to express a pure, naïve faith in a religion where religious feeling has survived. Indeed, he could not have done better than the angelic innocence of these two charming countenances that seem to have haloes concealed beneath their white, cloth caps. One of them is praying with profound seriousness while the other, swooning as if in a fervid ecstasy, allows her soul to rise heavenward in a sigh. We like this painting very much, it is so pure in
In 1880 Bouguereau completed yet another impressive work for the Cathedral of Saint-Louis at La Rochelle, Flagellation de N.S. Jésus Christ. One of his greatest masterpieces, the painting still hangs today in the baptistery of the cathedral. Christ, tied to a column, hangs limply; with feet dragging on the ground and head falling back, he submits to his fate. Two men stand with their whipping ropes mid swing, while a third man kneels to the lower right, fastening birch branches for the next stage of the torture. Unlike the two men who are carrying out the whipping, or a fourth man standing behind with birch branches at the ready, the kneeling man appears to show some remorse for his actions as his hand muscles loosen slightly with the pull of the string. The viewer can feel the pain of Christ’s torment, though his eyes are vacant of expression as if his soul is in another place. The crowd surrounding this event is filled with curious spectators. To the left, a young boy shelters his eyes from the horror by turning his back and pressing himself against his mother. To the right, just above Christ’s head, a baby looks down at him sympathetically from the vantage point of his father’s shoulders. Through the crowd, a bearded man looks directly at the viewer, thereby pulling the audience into the scene as if they too are part of the crowd. It is possible that this bearded man with furrowed brow is a self-portrait, so both Bouguereau and the viewer
In this work, Bouguereau captured the harsh reality of death. The infant – lifeless, naked and exposed –is intended to disturb the viewer, making comment on the sometimes cruel realities of our existence and human fragility in general. The manner in which the child’s body is treated also makes reference to it being but a shell, the soul having already departed. The child’s mother is collapsed over the Holy Mother’s lap, seeking comfort as Mary looks upwards, her hands raised as if to ask, “Why must this be?”
134 feeling, so soberly executed, and at the same time, so Afterperfect.3serving as a guard during the Siege of Paris in 1870/1871, Bouguereau was commissioned to begin work on the cathedral in his home town of La Rochelle in April of 1872, for which he would paint the cupola of the Chapel of the Virgin, a circular ceiling. The commission consisted of seven large works painted on copper that were affixed inside the cupola to prevent leaching through the paint. Marius Vachon, an important historian and art critic of Bouguereau’s time, would say of the project: “Around the cupola, in chronological order, illuminated pages from the Hours of the Virgin unfold: peaceful, serene images in which the smiling countenances of the few figures, clothed in bright, delicate colors, stand out against gold backgrounds, amid the greenery and flowers of an Eastern Eden, like celestial manifestations of the mirage of faith.”
4 The death of his eldest son, Georges, on June 19, 1875, served as inspiration for perhaps Bouguereau’s greatest religious masterpiece, Pietà (1876). The painting provides a 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 hangs limply in her arms while eight weeping angels surround them. The angels are clad in the colours of the rainbow and create an arc over Mary and Jesus. In the Old Testament, after the Great Flood subsided, Noah and his family saw the arc of a rainbow, which was a sign from God that the Flood was over and the world could be born anew. In Bouguereau’s Pietà, the arc symbolises that the sacrifice of Jesus is complete and that the human soul can be born anew and ascend to God after death. Mary looks outwards and upwards. It is intentionally unclear whether, from her seated position, she is focusing on the viewer or on the heavens with her swollen red eyes filled with sorrow and accusation. Most likely, as a mother mourning the loss of her child, she is accusing both the heavens and the earth for the pain that she and her son have suffered. Bouguereau’s 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’s feet is 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 underwent in order for humanity to attain salvation. The white robe and pitcher of water represent the purity of Jesus’s soul. Both Jesus and Mary are surrounded by a halo of light indicating theirGriefholiness.alsofuelled another of Bouguereau’s religious masterpieces, Vierge consolatrice (1877), which expressed a premonition of his little son Maurice’s death shortly after the death of Georges.5
135 Le Voeu à Sainte-Anne d’Auray (version seconde) (The Vow in Sainte-Anne d’Auray (second version)), 1869. 147 x 89.5cm (577⁄8 x 351⁄4in.) Private collection.
172 L’orage (The Storm), 1874. 158 x 88cm (621⁄4 x 345⁄8in.) Private collection.
173 L’orage (réduction pour la gravure) (The Storm (reduction for engraving)), 1874. 90.5 x 50.5cm (355⁄8 x 197⁄8in.) Private collection, USA.
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