The Shepherdess

Last updated
The Shepherdess
French: Pastourelle
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Shepherdess (1889).jpg
Artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Year1889 (1889)
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions158.75 cm× 93.35 cm(62.50 in× 36.75 in)
Location Philbrook Museum of Art

The Shepherdess (French : Pastourelle), also known as The Little Shepherdess, is a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau completed in 1889. The title is taken from the Southern French dialect. The painting depicts an idyllic, pastoral scene of a lone young woman in peasant attire posed for the artist, balancing a stick (likely her crook) across her shoulders, standing barefooted in the foreground. In the background are oxen grazing in a field.

Contents

It is one of many paintings by Bouguereau depicting shepherdesses, including one of the same name created in 1881. The subject is a model employed by Bouguereau for this and other paintings, including The Bohemian .

The Shepherdess is currently in the permanent collection at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, where it has become an emblematic image for the museum. It was the central image of a travelling exhibition about Bouguereau and his students that Philbrook created in 2006. [1] [2] [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

Cecilia Beaux American painter

Cecilia Beaux was an American society portraitist, in the manner of John Singer Sargent. She was a near-contemporary of American artist Mary Cassatt and also received her training in Philadelphia and France. Her sympathetic renderings of the American ruling class made her one of the most successful portrait painters of her era.

Mary Cassatt American painter and printmaker

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

Winslow Homer 19th and 20th-century American painter and printmaker

Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.

Academic art style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art

Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting, sculpture, and architecture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which was practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and the art that followed these two movements in the attempt to synthesize both of their styles, and which is best reflected by the paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Thomas Couture, and Hans Makart. In this context it is often called "academism", "academicism", "art pompier" (pejoratively), and "eclecticism", and sometimes linked with "historicism" and "syncretism".

William-Adolphe Bouguereau 19th-century French painter

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. During his life he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes. In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work. Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown.

<i>LAmour et Psyché, enfants</i> painting by William Bouguereau

L'Amour et Psyché, enfants is an oil painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau in 1890. It is currently in a private collection. It was displayed in the Salon of Paris in 1890, the year Bouguereau was President of the Société des Artistes Français. The painting features Greek mythological figures Eros and Psyché, sharing an embrace and kiss. Bouguereau was a Classical-style painter in the Neoclassical era of art. The painting is characterized by the frothy background the figures delicately stand on. It depicts the beginning of the forbidden romance of Cupid and Psyche, a popular subject at the time of execution.

<i>Nymphs and Satyr</i> painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Nymphs and Satyr is a painting, oil on canvas, created by artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1873.

Philbrook Museum of Art art museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook," the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve. Showcasing nine collections of art from all over the world, and spanning various artistic media and styles, the cornerstone collection focuses on Native American art featuring basketry, pottery, paintings and jewelry.

Minerva J. Chapman American artist

Minerva Josephine Chapman (1858–1947) was an American painter. She was known for her work in miniature portraiture, landscape, and still life.

<i>The Bohemian</i> (Bouguereau) painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The Bohemian is a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau completed in 1890. It depicts a barefooted young woman sitting on a concrete bench on the south bank of the Seine across from Notre Dame de Paris resting a violin in her lap. Her right arm is resting on her thigh while the palm of her left hand is pressed down on her left knee so that she does not lean on the violin. Her hands are clasped with the fingers pointing forward while her shoulders are wrapped in a shawl dyed maroon and light green, and she is wearing a gray dress that extends to her ankles. The bow of the violin has been stuck through diagonally under the fingerboard. To her right is a maple tree.

Ellen Day Hale American painter

Ellen Day Hale was an American Impressionist painter and printmaker from Boston. She studied art in Paris and during her adult life lived in Paris, London and Boston. She exhibited at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy of Arts. Hale wrote the book History of Art: A Study of the Lives of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Albrecht Dürer and mentored the next generation of New England female artists, paving the way for widespread acceptance of female artists.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner American painter

Elizabeth Jane Gardner was an American academic and salon painter, who was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. She was an American expatriate who died in Paris where she had lived most of her life. She studied in Paris under the figurative painter Hugues Merle (1823–1881), the well-known salon painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836–1911), and finally under William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). After Bouguereau's wife died, Gardner became his paramour and after the death of his mother, who bitterly opposed the union, she married him in 1896. She adopted his subjects, compositions, and even his smooth facture, channeling his style so successfully that some of her work might be mistaken for his. In fact, she was quoted as saying, "I know I am censured for not more boldly asserting my individuality, but I would rather be known as the best imitator of Bouguereau than be nobody!"

<i>The Young Shepherdess</i> painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The Young Shepherdess is an 1885 painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). It is owned by the San Diego Museum of Art.

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art museum in Norman, Oklahoma

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is an art museum on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma.

William B. T. Trego painter

William Brooke Thomas Trego was an American painter best known for his historical military subjects, in particular scenes of the American Revolution and Civil War.

Archie Blackowl was a Cheyenne painter from Oklahoma who played a pivotal role in mid-20th century Native American art. "Leave a mark. Put something down so that when the young people see it they will understand." –Archie Blackowl, July, 1975

<i>Première rêverie</i> painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Première rêverie, also known in English as Whisperings of Love, is a painting by nineteenth-century French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The work was completed in 1889 and is held at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Félix-Joseph Barrias French painter

Félix-Joseph Barrias was a French painter. He was well known in his day for his paintings of religious, historical or mythical subjects, but has now been largely forgotten. Artists who trained in his studio and went on to achieve fame include Edgar Degas, Gustave Achille Guillaumet and Henri Pille.

Georges Paul François Laurent Laugée French painter


Georges Paul François Laurent Laugée was a Naturalist French Painter of the 19th and early 20th century.

References

  1. Mary Thomas, "A vision of beauty and light: The Frick explores the idealized images of Bouguereau and his American students", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , July 3, 2007. (". . . a Bouguereau in the Philbrook, 'The Little Shepherdess,' became 'the signature image for that museum.' The Philbrook's . . . curator of European and American art, decided to organize an exhibition to put the painting -- 'a community icon' -- into a larger context, Bodine says.")
  2. Lashonda Stinson, "Exhibit showcases works of William Bouguereau and his students", Star-Banner , February 11, 2007.
  3. James Frederick Peck, In the Studios of Paris: William Bouguereau & His American Students (Philbrook Museum of Art, 2006), ISBN   978-0300114133. Listing at Google Books here.