CHARITY
BY WILLIAM ADOLPHE BOUGUEREAU


CHARITY
BY WILLIAM ADOLPHE BOUGUEREAU (1825-1905)
IN THE BIRMINGHAM MUNICIPAL ART GALLERY

This distinguished painter gained an international reputation and was very popular with the general public, although his works have been condemned by a certain school of critics on the ground that he was too severely academic. The present painting is one of his best known works, and entirely characteristic of his methods and aims in art. Other well-known canvases of this nature are - "The Consoler," "A Girl Defending Herself from Love," "Prayers," "The Invocation," and "Covetousness."

Bouguereau did not confine himself, however, to what may be termed morality pictures, but succeeded equally in other fields. After his training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, he studied in Rome, and used his experience in Italy with good effect on his return by decorating mansions in the classic style on the lines of the frescoes at Pompeii and Herculaneum. He became a regular exhibitor at the Salon, and his picture, "The Martyr's Triumph," now in the Luxembourg, which shows the body of St. Cecilia being borne to the catacombs, was exhibited at the great exhibition of 1855. Afterwards the State commissioned him to paint the Emperor's visit to the sufferers from the inundations at Tarascon.

He thus expressed his views on art and the position of the artist:

"The artist is born. Technique may be acquired by incessant work, but the instinct for art is a quality of the soul.... One must love it with his whole being. When the artist gives all that he is, all that he feels, when he translates with sincerity his deepest emotions, he can, even with an inferior technique, produce something beautiful, for in art there is something more than technique - soul-sentiment."

From the book "Famous Paintings" Volume 2 printed in 1913.

Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
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Online "Name the Painting"









"The Prayer"
painting by Bouguereau


Famous Paintings in this Series





James Archer
My Great Grandmother


Bashkirtseff
The Meeting


Bouguereau
Charity


John Brett
From the Dorsetshire Cliffs


Arnesby Brown
The River Bank


Joseph Clark
Mother's Darling


John Constable
The Hay-Wain


Jean Baptiste Camille
Corot
The Fisherman's Hut


Jean Baptiste Camille
Corot
A Flood


Leonardo Da Vinci
Monna Lisa


Edouard Detaille
The Dream


Henri Fantin-Latour
Flowers


Thomas Gainsborough
Queen Charlotte


Thomas Gainsborough
The Market Cart


Jean Baptiste Greuze
The Head of a Girl


Jean Baptiste Greuze
Fidelity


James Clark Hook
Home With the Tide


Alfred William Hunt
Windsor Castle


Josef Israels
The Shipwrecked Mariner


B.W. Leader
The Stream in Summer-time


Madame Vigee Le Brun
Portrait of the Artist

Alphonse Legros
A Canal With a Fisherman


Anton Mauve
Watering Horses


J.L.E. Meissonier
The Cavalier


Sir J.E. Millais
Speak! Speak!


Sir J.E. Mallais
My First Sermon


George Morland
The Reckoning


George Morland
The Inside of a Stable


Murillo
The Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin


Alfred Parsons
When Nature Painted
All Things Gay


Ralph Peacock
The Sisters


Rembrandt
Syndics of the
Cloth Merchants' Guild


Guido Reni
"Ecce Homo"


Sir Joshua Reynolds
Portrait of Mrs. Richard Hoare
With Her Infant Son


Briton Riviere
The Temptation
in the Wilderness


Dante Gabriel
Rossetti
Day Dreams


John Singer Sargent
Miss Ellen Terry
as Lady Macbeth


Lady Stanley
(Dorothy Tennant)
His First Offence


Jan Steen
Grace Before Meat


Marcus Stone
On the Road from
Waterloo to Paris


Constant Troyon
Watering Cattle


H.S. Tuke
"All Hands to the Pumps"


Velazquez
King Philip IV. of Spain


S.E. Waller
Sweethearts and Wives


Thomas Webster
The Smile

Index
Famous Paintings Volume 1
Art Gallery

Index
Famous Paintings Volume 2
Art Gallery

Index
Art Appreciation
Lessons