Bouguereau was mentioned on the Jackson’s Art Supplies Blog, at the occasion of his birthday on 30 November. Bouguereau was a French painter, he lived from 1825 to 1905. He became very successful during his lifetime for his realistic painting style, but fell out of favour later when impressionists became en vogue. I followed up this artist because I was intrigued by the paintings, although I’m having difficulty to tell what fascinated me.

Bouguereau mostly produced oil paintings, with mostly depicting female models. Looking at these it reminded me again of one particular difference between oil painting, or opaque techniques, and watercolour: With opaque techniques, the lighter colours can be put on top of the darker colours. What I find very difficult with watercolours is that one has to analyse in advance where the lightest areas are to leave them out, and go from lighter to darker colours. I often feel the tendency to work into both directions, from light to dark and vice versa, and the general watercolour work rule feels quite restrictive.

The artrenewal.org web site offers high resolution reproductions which are nice for studying how the details are painted. I may not make so much use of this for the watercolour course because of the technical differences, but it’s interesting to study these paintings as if I was in a museum, where I can go very close to the canvas.

I think what captured me here was how these oil paintings exemplified the difference between the two media. It wouldn’t be possible to create this impression of massiveness with watercolours – watercolours (for me) are supposed to be light and transparent, at the same time they can be very intense.

Sources

Complete works online: http://www.bouguereau.org

High-resolution reproductions , eg avant le bain (1900) from http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=4896&size=huge

Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau

Extended gallery at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau