The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-08


 1 he studied drawing by himself, then gained a prize, worked at Bordeaux, and arrived at the Ecole des Beaux
 Arts in Paris as the pupil of Picot. He divided the Prix de ome with B audry, and at once entered on the struggles of an artist who is soon to conquer success. It must not be imag- ined that William Bouguereau Che was very particular about the William" and repudiated the French form) could not do better than the pictures which in recent years he has contributed to the royal academy exhibitions.
 In due course he received commis- sions to decorate private mansions, and before long the usual sort of historical works which he executed with unusual ability for the annual Salons gave way to the sami-decorative pictures, half modern, half classic, Eoy which he gained his reputation and won for tune equaled it is said, by few painters of France.
 well remember my first acquaint- ance with him. It was in his studio in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, in Paris--a great apartment on the high est floor, stocked with accessories of all kinds, and leading to a conservato- ry studio for daylight purposes. He was a genial, able-bodied, jovial gen. tleman of the bourgeois type, carrying his sixty years with ease, kind, hospit- able and frank, dressed in pepper and salt jacket that once was brown, with . braided smoking cap to match, a bri- ar pipe between his lipsf and little pa- lette on his thumb, asfhe sat perched upon a stool working away at his Salon picture; while @ jar of hirdseye and paint pot stocked with a hundred brushes stood ready to his hand. The picture on which he was at work was his Spring; the Awakening of the Cu- pids," in which a fair and ultra-grace- ful nude standing figure, newly awak- ened, looks around half shy and wholly pleased in innocent wonder at the bud- ding of the flowers and trees. and on the nine attendant Cupids, all of whom are not yet aroused. It was the picture which was afterward exhibited in America.
 -' It was a large picture,e and the whole of the figures occupied the artist but two months altogether. The weather was hot-the thermometer marked over eighty degrees; but, said he, "If have to keep 1t so on account of my Httle An1our"-a sweet little f1ve-year-old maiden, who was sitting for all the Cu- bids in the picture. She was looking up, laughing at her father, who stood by her side, patient in his vain att tempts to keep her still, as 'the cher maitre" painted with a rapidity beyond what have ever seen, yet with a finish that made one marvel and disapprove. He laughed. Sometimes I get in the outline of the sitter" he said, before she knows I have begun. CTurn your head, mignonne-that's right) But then children are very trying. (Turn your head, petite.) In that picture over there, Love the Conqueror,' I painted the head one day and the body the next-life size-and it is as highly finished as anything ever did. (Head this way, cherie) Now here" contin- ued M. Bouguereau, pointing to the many portfolios lying about, "are my studies. This one contains angels, as you see-no, I'm wrong; they are bac- chanalian scenes. This one, with it's sixteen figures, took me three minutes to sketch, and made no material al- terations in the picture But I've not always been painting nymphs and pret- ty ladies and children.
 My first picture was in 1S49-there it is, up there-'Death, the angel of Death. Then there's my 'Dante's In- ferno.' But I soon found that the hor- rible, the frenzied, the heroic does not pay; and as the public of to-day pre- fers Venuses and Cupids, and as I paint to please them, to Venus and her Cupid I chiefly devote myself. Of course, used to paint religious pictures and frescoes on a heroic scale. Here, in this portfolio, are some of the stud ies-no, those are the female nudes. An, here we are"-and as he ran them over I caught sight of motives that suggested Ugoline de Siena far more than William Bougeureau. Then I turned to consider 0 picture that was lon the way'-the picture of Adam and Eve Mourning the Death of Abel"
 I4atterly he showed us nymphs who every year became more and more like wet china, yet impeccable; too impec- cable, in their drawing, too perfect in their grace, too amiable in their sunny smile which looked, as indeed was true,