Art by Bouguereau at the San Diego Art museum
William-Adolphe
Bouguereau enjoyed a remarkable popularity in the United States, particularly
during the late 1800s through the early 20th century. Lauded and laureled by
the French artistic establishment, and a dominant presence at the Parisian
Salons, Bouguereau’s canvases offered American collectors the chance to bring
Gallic sophistication and worldly elegance to their own galleries and drawing
rooms. The master’s idealized, polished images—of chastely sensual classical
maidens, Raphaelesque Madonnas, and impossibly pristine peasant
children—embodied the tastes of the American Victorian age, and of his Gilded
Age patrons. Bouguereau canvases at one time were de rigueur for every
collector and arts institution from the late 1860s to the early 1900s in America.
As art turned towards
Impressionism throughout much of the 20th century, artists rejected
Bouguereau’s conventional treatment of paint and form while they explored
abstraction, color field painting, and investigated alternative forms of art
and representation. Ostracized for nearly 80 years, his portrayals of peasants
and feminine beauty during his time were strongly embraced by his contemporary
academic circle but reviled as the Realist movement in visual arts and
literature took hold and gave way to Modernism.
This exhibition also includes a long time favorite by Bouguereau at The
San Diego Museum of Art – The Young Shepherdess, 1885.
