1882
A house on rue Verdière in La Rochelle
From the early 1870s Bouguereau and his family spend every summer in La Rochelle; in 1882 he decides to buy a house, and farm buildings, rather than rent, and by August the family has a permanent summer base on rue Verdière: he begins several paintings here and completes them in his Paris studio.
1885
A lecture at the Institut de France: the beauty of the body
In a lecture at the Institut de France in 1885 Bouguereau says that the art of the past shows what an inexhaustible source of inspiration lies in a comparatively small number of elements — the head, bust, arms, torso, legs, belly — and asks why, then, one should look for other subjects for painting or sculpture.
1885–1905
Post: chairperson
1886
The Salon of 1886: the scandal of “The Return of Spring”
At the Salon of 1886 a great scandal is caused by “The Return of Spring”, a canvas on the awakening of love: the artist is accused of “immorality”. He takes such attacks hard, is proud of the picture and in a letter to his son-in-law insists that the pose and expression of the young woman are, as he thinks, entirely correct.
1886
A memorial exhibition for his friend Paul Baudry
Thanks to Bouguereau’s efforts a memorial exhibition of the work of his friend Paul Baudry, with whom he once went to Rome, is held in 1886; he will later dedicate several images of nude women against a rolling wave to Baudry’s memory.
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Chicago, Verenigde Staten
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