Bouguereau made more than seven hundred finished works. French painter. From 1838 to 1841 he took drawing lessons from Louis Sage, a pupil of Ingres, while attending the coll?ge at Pons. In 1841 the family moved to Bordeaux where in 1842 his father allowed him to attend the Ecole Municipale de Dessin et de Peinture part-time, under Jean-Paul Alaux. In 1844 he won the first prize for figure painting, which confirmed his desire to become a painter. As there were insufficient family funds to send him straight to Paris he painted portraits of the local gentry from 1845 to 1846 to earn money. In 1846 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in the studio of Francois-Edouard Picot. This was the beginning of the standard academic training of which he became so ardent a defender later in life. Such early works as Equality reveal the technical proficiency he had attained even while still training. In 1850 he was awarded one of the two Premier Grand Prix de Rome for Zenobia Discovered by Shepherds on the Bank of the River Araxes (1850; Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.). In December 1850 he left for Rome where he remained at the Villa Medici until 1854, working under Victor Schnetz and Jean Alaux (1786-1864). During this period he made an extensive study of Giotto's work at Assisi and Padua and was also impressed by the works of other Renaissance masters and by Classical art. On his return to France he exhibited the Triumph of the Martyr (1853; Luneville, Mus. Luneville; ) at the Salon of 1854. It depicted St Cecilia's body being carried to the catacombs, and its high finish, restrained colour and classical poses were to be constant features of his painting thereafter. All his works were executed in several stages involving an initial oil sketch followed by numerous pencil drawings taken from life. Though he generally restricted himself to classical, religious and genre subjects, he was commissioned by the state to paint Napoleon III Visiting the Flood Victims of Tarascon in 1856   Related Paintings of Adolphe William Bouguereau :. | The Bathers (mk26) | La fortune (mk26) | Fraternal Love (mk26) | Orestes Pursued by the Furies (mk26) | Birth of Venus |
Related Artists:
Jeno Gyarfas
Hungarian 1857-1925
James Shannonc
born in the United States and moved to England in 1878 where he trained at South Kensington 1862-1923
COYPEL, Antoine
French Baroque Era Painter, 1661-1722 director of the French Royal Academy and principal painter of Louis XV. He illustrated many literary works, including editions of Moliere's plays, and was himself a prolific dramatist. Coypel wrote one fairy tale, Agla ou Nabotine (Agla or Little One?), published posthumously in 1779. Coypel weaves several traditional fairy tale motifs into the story of a benevolent fairy who tests the kindness and sincerity of an ugly little girl whose virtue is eventually rewarded with beauty and the love of a handsome young man.