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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. He finished 822 known paintings, but the whereabouts of many are still unknown.
Georges Michel was a French landscape painter and restorer.
Georges Michel painted landscapes in oil and watercolor, creating many paintings of views of Paris neighborhoods. In 1791, the artist made his debut at the Salon, where he continued to exhibit regularly. However, critics ignored Michel, considering his works too similar to those of the Dutch masters. From 1800 he worked at the Louvre as a restorer of Flemish and Dutch paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Jacob van Ruysdal and Meindert Hobbema, who had a decisive influence on his own work.
A forerunner of the Barbizon School, Georges Michel was forgotten for several decades after his death. The first major exhibition of his work was presented in Paris in 1927. Today, his work is in museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hermitage Museum, the Vanderbilt University Gallery, the Strasbourg Museum of Fine Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many others.
