William-Adolphe Bouguereau (Page 2)

The mythological and religious artwork of William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, França, on 30 novembro 1825, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. The son of Catholic parents Théodore Bouguereau b1800 and Marie Bonnin b1804, known as Adeline.

He had an elder brother, Alfred, and a younger sister, Marie (known as Hanna), who died at the age of seven. The family moved to Saint-Martin-de-Ré in 1832. Another sibling was born in 1834, Kitty.

At the age of 12, Bouguereau went to Mortagne to stay with his uncle Eugène, a priest and developed a love of nature, religion and literature. Em 1839, he was sent to study for the priesthood at a Catholic college in Pons.

At the Catholic College he was taught to draw and paint by Louis Sage, who had studied under Ingres. Bouguereau reluctantly left his studies to return to his family, now residing in Bordeaux. While in Bordeaux in November 1841 he met a local artist, Charles Marionneau, and continued his artistic studies at the Municipal School of Drawing and Painting.

Bouguereau also worked as a shop assistant, hand-colouring lithographs and making small paintings that were reproduced using chromolithography. He was soon the best pupil in his class, and decided to become an artist in Paris. To fund the move, he sold 33 unsigned oil portrait portraits in three months; and with the money earned, arrived in Paris at the age of 20 in March 1846.

After arriving in Paris Bouguereau became a student at the École des Beaux-Arts; and to supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology. Em 1848 he created Égalité Devant La Mort (Equality Before Death), his first Bmajor painting.

Later he gained a position in the studio of François-Édouard Picot, where he studied painting in the academic style; producing Dante and Virgil in Hell c1850, which is an early example of his neo-classical artwork.

During his life Bouguereau enjoyed a significant amount of popularity in France and the United States, and was given numerous official honors, while enjoying being paid top price for his artwork. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde.

Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown.

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