Bouguereau

Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world. In 1900, his contemporaries Degas and Monet reportedly named him as most likely to be remembered as the greatest 19th-century French painter by the year 2000, according to chairman Fred Ross of the Art Renewal Center - although with Degas' famous trenchant wit, and the aesthetic tendencies of the two Impressionists, it is possible the statement was meant as an ironic comment on the taste of the future public. Bouguereau's works were eagerly bought, at high prices, especially by American millionaires. His many religious themed paintings made him also popular at the time. After about 1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute. Some assert this may have been consciously engineered by the new "art expert establishment", who resented his former opposition to new developments in painting, but it is likely that more profound societal factors were instrumental to this enormous shift in taste and sensibility. For decades, his name was not even mentioned in encyclopedias. Today, over one hundred museums throughout the world exhibit his works.

At a rather advanced age, Bouguereau was married for the second time, to fellow artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, one of his pupils. He also used his influence to open many French art institutions to women for the first time, including the Académie française.

The Birth of Venus (La Naissance de Vénus) is one of the most famous paintings by 19th century painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It depicts not the actual birth of Venus from the sea, but the transportation of Venus in a shell from the sea to Paphos in Cyprus. For Bouguereau, it was truly a tour de force. The canvas stands at just over 9'10" (3m) high, and 7'2" (2.2m) wide. The subject matter, as well as the composition, resembles the rather more famous rendition of this subject, Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, as well as Raphael's painting, The Triumph of Galatea.

The painting is currently held in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris

In my opinion, Bouguereau had a fantastic talent as a painter. The two main reasons why I like his paintings are, (1) because of his attention to detail, a skill of depicting everything in an almost photographic style; and (2) because here we had a painter who did not just cater to the rich people, but most of his works actually show peasants, simple people in their everyday activities, struggles and joys; making him a chronic of his time.