William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1825-1905

One hundred years ago today, William Adolphe Bouguereau died. He was the last of the great Academic painters – a genius who took his subject matter from Greek and Roman mythology and his style from the photo-realistic idealism of the Neoclassicists. With his death, it has been said, came the death of painting as art form as tastes shifted toward Impressionism and its inevitable and unaesthetic successor – the abstract movement, in which paint randomly splattered on a canvas came to represent ‘skill’.

True skill, talent, and passion lay in the precise hands of Bouguereau, who painted haunting religious scenes, passionate sensuality, joyful innocence, and idealized lives. In Bouguereau’s world, even the beggars had clean feet. Such was not true, but what is art if not a quest for perfection?

Forgotten upon his death – swept under by the Impressionist/Abstract tide – Bouguereau’s work collected dust in attics, basements, and the living rooms of upper-class homes. His work was often sold for as little as $500.

So I had not heard of this man or his grasp of beauty until I turned a corner in the Birmingham Museum of Art and saw this:

My jaw dropped.

It was perfect.

She was perfect.

The Greek goddess Dawn rises from night. Her middle toe just barely touches the surface of the water -- and points to the mirror image of her in the water. The morning breeze sweeps her diaphanous gown around her.

Flawless.

Could a mere mortal have executed such a feat? Yet a simple Frenchman had.

A century after his death, Bouguereau is beginning to receive the recognition that he deserves. His paintings are now celebrated and hang in the finest galleries of the world.

Godspeed William Adolphe Bouguereau, and thank you.

UPDATE: Content changes made to make it worthy of submission to the History Carnival.