To appreciate the art of Bouguereau one must have a deep respect for drawing and likewise, submit to the mystery of illusion as one of painting's most sublime powers. Bouguereau's vast repertory of playful and poetic images cannot help but appeal to those who are fascinated with nature's appearances and with the celebration of human sentiment frankly and unabashedly expressed.

Bouguereau actively collected photographs and tempered his observations of nature with a keen awareness of the qualities of light inherent in the photographic image, he almost never worked from photographs.

He practiced a method of painting that had been developed and refined over the centuries in order to bring to vivid life-imagined scenes from history, literature, and fantasy. The process of acquisition of the skills necessary to produce a first-rate academic painting was a long and laborious one.

Bouguereau once wrote:
"Theory has no place.., in an artist's basic education. It is the eye and the hand that should be exercised during the impressionable years of youth .... It is always possible to later acquire the accessory knowledge involved in the production of a work of art, but never - and I want to stress that point -- never can the will, perseverance, and tenacity of a mature man make up for insufficient practice. And can there be such anguish compared to that felt by the artist who sees the realization of his dream compromised by weak execution?"

The singular goal of traditional art instruction was to endow artists with the skills essential for the convincing pictorial actualization of their imagined visions. The croquis, figure drawings, compositional sketches, color studies, and cartoons were all logical steps in a process that at the end magically congealed separately studied details into an impressive, illusionistic, and unified ensemble. Plein-air studies were also commonly done as part of the training of most academic painters. The impressionist landscape painters, deeply stirred as they were by the visual world, limited themselves to this genre, and succeeded in refining certain techniques that wonderfully rendered out-of-door effects; these techniques were later adopted, in some measure, by many studio painters as well.

Although broken color was not an innovation of the Impressionists (Vermeer was well aware of the principle), some of them took the technique to its presumed theoretical limit. But they did so at the expense of form and modeling, which continued to concern academic painters as well as conservative Impressionists such as Degas and Fantin-Latour.

The painter Courbet, who professed disdain for the unseen worlds of the academicians, painted imagined scenes which he could not possibly have produced from direct observation; for their realization, he was perforce obliged to draw upon the traditional methods of the Academy.

The method Bouguereau used to execute his important paintings provided ample opportunity for the study and resolution of problems that might arise in each of these areas.

The separate steps leading to the genesis of a painting were:
1. croquis and tracings
2. oil sketch and/or grisaille study
3. highly finished drawings for all the figures, drapery, and foliage in the composition
4. detailed studies in oil for heads, hands, animals, etc.
5. cartoon
6. the finished painting.

Bouguereau was constantly making "thumbnail sketches". These preliminary studies were done during meetings at the Institute or in the evenings after supper. For the most part they were scribbled from the artist's memory or imagination, others were sketched directly from nature. These drawings constituted a very important element of Bouguereau's work. They held a wealth of information about the artist's method. They also show how a particular composition evolved. They were often refined by means of successive tracings.

Bouguereau was reputed to have the best models in Paris, some of them were not always the most cooperative; as one observer noted:
"Bouguereau's Italian model-women are instructed to bring their infant offspring, their tiny sisters and brothers, and the progeny of their highly prolific quarter. Once in the studio, the little human frogs are undressed and allowed to roll around on the floor, to play, to quarrel, and to wail in lamentation. They dirty up the room a great deal -- they bring in a great deal of dirt that they do not make. They are neither savory nor aristocratic nor angelic. Sketchbook in hand, he records their movements as they tumble on the floor drawing the curves and turns of their aldermanic bodies, and he counts the creases of fat on their plump thighs."

If a figure was to be clothed, Bouguereau would make drapery studies by posing a mannequin in place of the model and experimenting with the folds of cloth until a disposition was found that enhanced the underlying forms. Sometimes, especially for small or single-figure paintings, Bouguereau drew the model already draped. Most of the figure drawings were executed in pencil or charcoal (or a combination of the two) and were often heightened with white. The support for them is usually a heavyweight toned paper Of medium grain; such a background allowed Bouguereau to dispense with the problem of rendering troublesome half-tones which, in any event, were more easily and accurately realized in the painted studies.

Some of Bouguereau's comments help us understand the manner in which he perceived nature and its representation in his art.
"Paint as you see and be accurate in your drawing: the whole secret of your art is there." If you want to draw and model effectively, you have to see all of the details as well as the whole at the same time. One of the more useful tricks for getting the overall feeling of a painting, is to blink your eyes while looking at the model."

Some of Bouguereau's drawings were rendered with the aid of an optical device known as the chambre claire. This instrument, by means of prisms, allowed the tracing of a subject's outlines, as observed by the artist, directly onto a drawing board. Used as an artist might use a photograph today, the chambre claire permitted the artist to readily and quickly reproduce certain details of nature which could be used later in the studio as details in a painting.

The oil sketches of heads and hands, done, like the figure drawings, from nature were worked to such a degree of finish that Bouguereau was frequently able to use them for the finished painting without further recourse to the live model. The execution and the function of these studies have been described by Leandre Vaillat:

Bouguereau's medium is described by Moreau-Vauthier:
"Bouguereau used siccatives in his painting: a first siccative, a kind of Courtrai, employed by house-painters and known as siccatif soleil; and then a second, mysterious siccative whose recipe he kept secret. However, one of his pupils believes it was composed of a mixture of "siccatif de Haarlem" and essence, plus a little oliesse added in the summer months to prevent its drying too quickly. As with most painters, Bouguereau changed methods several times. One of his students wrote me: "Bouguereau, at the time I entered his studio, used as his sole medium a liquid composed of Courtrai mixed with nut oil and turpentine oil in varying proportions, depending on the colors used. Thus, for shadows, [he used] spirit and Courtrai, with little or no white; for the other colors, oil, spirit, and a small amount of Courtrai; finally, to rework a dry outline, pure or nearly pure oil or spirit. He oiled out the area to be re-painted to desemboire [that is, to treat the canvas so as to prevent the color from sinking in] it, with either the first or the second liquid, depending on the effect he wanted. He also painted with picture-varnish blended into these two liquids, but that was before I entered his atelier .... "

Bouguereau used "siccatif soleil" in order to lay in his sketch without thickening it. Sometimes he left it to dry before re-working; other times, he repainted over it immediately, using a second, less powerful siccative [the secret one]. In the case of a dry sketch, he rubbed this same siccative in before re-working. He has also painted with picture-varnish. In short, he painted with a medium that dried right under the brush."

The "secret recipes" described by Moreau-Vauthier conform closely to several found in Bouguereau's sketchbooks; they are as follows:
Quantities for the paste:
Siccative of Haarlem, 6 drops, Diluted with turpentine Oil 2-3 drops oil, as needed. Courtrai, 1 drop. Add some Haarlem to the white and one drop of Courtrai to the other colors.
Glazing:
Oil and spirit, little Haarlem. For an extra glaze, little or no turpentine.

To prime the canvas before painting:
Haarlem, picture-varnish diluted with elemi (little elemi, 1/5), a drop or two brown fixed oil and terebine. Afterwards paint with the same mixture diluted with a few more drops of fixed oil and terebine

Other dipper:
picture-varnish and elemi in small quantity and light fixed oil diluted with turpentine. For a fresh glazing, add to the 2nd dipper a few drops petroleum spirit.
for a fresh glazing, add to second dipper a few drops petroleum spirit.
Under painting. Copal dissolved in turpentine diluted with elemi (little).
Ist dipper, for painting: White siccative. Oliesse and elemi.
2nd dipper, for glazing: Turpentine oil (ratafia caron), oliesse, petroleum spirit.

Venetian-type painting
grind pigments into turpentine
add part of the oliesse and grind again
at the last minute, add the Robertson paste [a commercially prepared medium] and give a final grinding. Very good for all lacquers.

Bouguereau never mentions a specific palette, but Moreau-Vauthier is helpful in this regard; he gives it as:
Naples Yellow (lead antimonate)
Yellow-Ochre
Chrome Yellow, dark<
Viridian
Cobalt Blue
White Lead
Light Vermilion
Chinese Vermilion
Mars Brown (iron oxide)
Van Dyck Brown
Burnt Sienna
Ivory Black
Bitumen
Genuine Rose Madder, dark

All of Bouguereau's colors are still available today as prepared artist's paints, but not from any single manufacturer. In one of his sketchbooks, Bouguereau lists so many pigments that no palette could possibly contain them, but it is interesting to note all the possibilities he had to choose from.

It seems that Bouguereau purchased prepared colors in tubes, but on occasion he also ground certain colors himself. It is not known precisely which brand(s) of prepared colors Bouguereau used, but he did write an endorsement for the colors of Lefranc: "I am pleased to have only good to say about the colors made by Messieurs Lefranc et Cie."

For the entire article written by Mark Steven Walker, please see
"Bougereau at Work"

Bibliography:
Bouguereau, Fronia E. Wissman, 1996

Also see:
The Biography and Paintings of William Bouguereau
The Nude Drawing Studies of William Bouguereau