The Captive

For me a work of art must be an elevated interpretation of nature. The search for the ideal has been the purpose of my life. William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a foremost practitioner of French academic art, which advocated highly finished images and adherence to classical ideals of anatomy and perspective, clear contours, and precise drawing. This view of a winged child—an angel? a fairy?—contemplating a captured butterfly is a combination of the real and the ideal: it retains the sense of the model posing in the studio, while also evoking an imagined, beautiful world in which otherworldly beings interact with nature and humanity (represented by the stone balustrade). One of the most successful French artists of the 19th century, Bouguereau exhibited at the Salon—the annual, state-sponsored juried art exhibition in Paris—from 1854 until his death in 1904. His dominance helped make him a symbol of the “official” art against which avant-garde movements like the Impressionists rebelled