William Bouguereau: The Essential Works

A delightful read. Excellent seller as well.

Beautiful book, perfect for coffee table

Beautifully presented collection of works by an immensely talented painter who has been shamefully relegated to the status of supreme villain in too many art history texts. This book helps to set the record straight, detailing Bouguereau’s experiences as a teacher who was inclusive, and often used himself, the techniques of the Impressionists who are now so lauded. Our bookshelves need more monographs featuring the brilliant painters of the Nineteenth Century.

Will Bou is one of the greatest Oil painters to have ever lived IMHO. His attention to detail, research and composition is simply stunning. He is one of my top inspirations for my art and I thank him for all the wonderful paintings he’s contributed to humanity while he was alive. A must have for the art connoisseur .

A rare rich description of Bouguereau's work full of beautiful images of his art.

The works of the French Academics have long been overshadowed due to, as Juliette Aristides once said, “(M)any art historians’ infatuation with the impressionist movement.” This, along with the modern art movements which followed, caused many critics and historians to label the Academics as a bunch of old dinosaurs, bitterly clinging to a moribund, stale, lifeless old tradition that was well deserving of being forgotten.Luckily, a reassessment of Late 19th century art has begun to come to the fore. The French Academics are once again seen not only as the culmination of nearly 600 years of training and techniques, but also as the innovators that they truly were. Helping in that reassessment are Frederick and Kara Ross, and their new book on one of the leading lights of the French Academics, William Bougereau.The book is a handsome presentation. The text is both informative and brief, leaving most of the space to the artworks. This is an improvement over many art books, wherein the text often crowds out the reproductions, leaving many of the images to be printed at the size of a trading card or postage stamp. The text also doesn’t fall into the trap of many other art books, in that it neither denigrates the artist contemporaries (not even the impressionist), nor seems to be apologizing for the artist being a person of their time. One gets the sense that the Ross's have a true fondness for Bougereau, and are quite eager to reestablish his reputation as an artist, humanitarian, and promoter of the arts. An enjoyable read indeed.As for the artwork, as stated, I like the large size of the reproductions. While this may limit the number of works presented, including some pretty startling omissions, I’d rather see fewer works well presented than more works crammed in with a loss of detail and clarity. Future art book creators would do well to study how the Ross's laid out this book. Plus, I love the matte finish of the paper.However, I do have some quibbles. One is that I feel that there should have been a separate classification for Bouguereau’s nudes. Trying to fit them in the mythological category is a bit constricting, since, such as the authors pointed out with La Vague, not all of them have a mythological underpinning. This is a minor issues, of course. At least the authors don’t seem to be embarrassed, or be trying to make excuses for the nudes as Fronia E. Wissman did in her Bougereau book from the 90’s.Beyond that, there are some reproduction issues. To start, a number of the double page spreads are placed in such a way as to have important details lost in the gutter folds. It’s quite a pity to see a close up of La naissance de Venus wherein the goddess’ face has been unsightly slashed in half. A slight adjustment to the left or right would place the fold in a less consequential area of the composition. Fortunately, the only other truly egregious offender is La jeunesse de Bacchas, although it is, unfortunately, one of my favorites.Finally, about a quarter of the paintings look too dark and murky, as though the “K” tones were overprinted. This can happen when one forgets that white on a computer screen is much brighter than the white of a piece of paper. This is a common error that pops up in many digitally created or edited images. Unfortunate, and an experienced printer should have corrected for it. Still, it’s perhaps a bit better than some of the overly lightened images of the old Wissman book, but it is enough of an issue to knock off one star.However, over all I am pleased with my purchase, and hope to see more books of this sort in the future.

Probably the most complete artist to ever live. If you want a good insight on Bouguereau's art I would highly recommend this book.

This is a beautiful book!

I am a great fan of the so-called Academic style of art that flourished thru the 1800s - particularly appreciating the masterful painting style of its various advocates. When the Modern Art movement came along it was initially reviled by the old-school Academics - and, in turn, as Modern Art became ascendant, its practitioners denigrated the Academy artists to the point that many of them were almost relegated to oblivion! William Bouguereau was an acknowledged master of his craft - demonstrating amazing technical virtuosity in his oil paintings - achieving an almost photo-realism in his canvases, and, ironically, it was this virtuosity that was the basis for much of the criticism of his work as the modern age dawned. With the invention of the camera and photography the, previously admired, skill of rendering subjects with nearly photographic precision came to be considered somewhat redundant & obsolete in artistic circles. Bougureaur’s creative output sorta spanned the pre and post photographic periods, and while he tried to embrace the new technologies (like many of his contemporaries) his work ultimately fell out of favour with the critical elite.In delving into this book on his work I was impressed by his style, but could also appreciate how his paintings were easy prey for the critics of the day. The book itself is beautifully presented with a large format size & exceptional printing quality. The.’content’ is divided into 4 sections - each dealing with specific subject matter that Bouguereau apparently enjoyed: Portraiture, Mythological themes, Religious themes, and Peasant themed. The work of his that initially attracted me were his ‘mythological’ fantasy oriented canvases - full of lush nudes & fanciful fairies - and there is a goodly sampling provided. However, there are many more pages devoted to portraits of unknown individuals, and particularly a mass of his images that portray winsome ‘peasant’ women & children (as pictured on the book’s cover) generally gazing directly at the viewe in a somewhat unsettling fashion! While every picture included is of exceptional technical quality - there is a sense of maudlin sentimentality that creeps into many of the images that does tend to weaken their impact.After many decades of blatant dismissal by the modern art world there has been a recent re-appreciation for the extraordinary painting skills of the Academic artisans - with painters such as Bouguereau and Jean Leon Gerome gaining a new audience. Although. I found the content of much of Bouguereau’s work to not be of ‘personal’ interest I would nonetheless recommend this book highly for its excellent quality as a thorough over-view of this incredible painter.

VERY GOOD

Livro muito bem elaborado com a história de vida do pintor e a maioria das suas grandes obras.Recomendo como prenda de natal para as pessoas que gostam de arte ou do trabalho do autor.

Buen artículo

Zeit seines Lebens war Bouguereau eine Art "König seiner Zunft" und seine Bilder kosteten in etwa den Preis einer Feudal-Villa. Vor allem amerikanische Sammler liebten seine technisch überragenden Werke und kauften sie zuhauf. Mit dem Aufkommen des Impressionismus, des Kubismus, sowie des Expressionismus begann sein Stern zu sinken und sein Name verschwand zunehmend aus den Museen, den Schulbüchern und den Kunst-Lexika. Ein Trend der von einer Spekulanten-Elite auch eifrig befördert wurde, denn mit den "neumodischen Schmierereien" konnte man schneller und in höherer Zahl "Kunst" und damit Geld produzieren. So verschwanden die sogenannten Salon-Maler weltweit, wie auch in England die "viktorianischen" Künstler zunehmend aus dem Blickfeld. Ein Glücksfall daher, dass sich Frederick und Kara Lysandra Ross mit ihrer Online Galerie "ART RENEWALL CENTER" und Nachwuchs fördernden Aktionen dieser so lange vernachlässigten Kunstrichtung wieder gewidmet haben. Mit diesem Buch ist es ihnen gelungen einen vorzüglichen Überblick über die wohl besten Gemälde des wohl brillantesten Künstlers seines Genres anzubieten. Das Buch bietet alles was man sich als Bouguereau-Gemälde Liebhaber wünschen kann!