A Double Bouguereau Tribute To The World’s Most Powerful Woman

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Angela Merkel, created by groundzero. Click for full-size image.

In May 2013, German chancellor Angela Merkel was named as the most powerful woman in the world by business magazine Forbes for the third year running. Shown here is the lady in a remastered version of Bouguereau’s 1895 painting La Brise du Printemps (Spring Breeze). The image was created for a photoshop contest on FreakingNews in 2009. This, and a second entry, were created by digital artist groundzero. Below you can compare the original and the contemporary version of each. Click the original paintings to visit the galleries where you will find many more; click the remastered versions to view them on FreakingNews.

spring-breeze-original.jpg Angela Merkel (The Beauty) difficult-lesson-original.jpg Angela Merkel

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Happy Bouguereau Birthday To Cher

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Detail of Madame Cher by Mandrak on Worth1000. Click for full image

May 20, 2013 marks the 67th birthday of American recording artist, Emmy-award winning television personality, award-winning actress, director, record producer and philanthropist Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946). Often called the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in film, music and television. She is the only person in history to have received all of these awards.

Shown above is Cher in a remastered version of Bouguereau’s 1895 painting Madame la Comtesse de Cambaceres (Madam the Countess of Cambaceres). It was created by digital artist Mandrak for a Modern Renaissance contest on Worth1000 in 2007.

Below you can compare the two versions. Click the first to visit the gallery where you can admire four more contemporary variations on Bouguereau’s painting. Click the second to view the remastered version on Worth1000.

contesse-original.jpg contesse-cher.jpg

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Bouguereau And The Madonna Of The Matrix

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Detail of The Madonna of the Matrix by Morgan Patton. Click for full image

The Matrix [wiki] is a 1999 cult film which won four Academy Awards, and was followed by two sequels in 2003. Seattle-based digital artist Morgan Patton combined elements of the movies (notably the sunglasses and the green “digital rain”) with Bouguereau’s painting La Vierge au Lys (The Virgin of the Lilies) and aptly named his work The Madonna of the Matrix. Interesting coincidence: Bouguereau painted this work in 1899, exactly 100 years before the release of the first Matrix movie!

Below you can compare the two versions. Click the first to visit the gallery where you will find sixteen more contemporary variations. Click the second image to view The Madonna of the Matrix in full size.

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Bouguereau And The Art Of Consumerism


Detail of L’Assaut by Nadège Dauvergne. Click for full image

Nadège Dauvergne [website] is a multi-faceted French graphic artist. Part of her portfolio is a series consisting of printed catalogue pages to which she adds classic works of art, using colored marking pens, made by Posca. Shown here is one of her works, based on Bouguereau’s 1898 painting L’Assaut (The Assault). Below you can compare it with the original artwork. Click the first image to visit the gallery where you will find several more contemporary variations. Click the second to view Nadège’s version on her website.

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Below are several more Bouguereau-inspired works by Nadège Dauvergne. Click to visit the associated galleries.

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Happy Mother’s Day From William Bouguereau!


Detail of La Charite by bishop2z3z on DeviantArt. Click for full image

Mother’s Day [wiki] is celebrated across the world, but the date varies from country to country. In most territories, mothers and motherhood are honored on the second Sunday of May.

Many Bouguereau paintings celebrate motherhood. One of them is La Charité (Charity, 1878). Shown here is a digital representation by an anonymous artist who publishes as bishop2z3z on DeviantArt. There are many more creative remasterings of Bouguereau’s work in our museum. Some are shown below. Click the first image to visit the gallery where you will find all of them. Click the others to view them on their site of origin.

charity-original.jpg Woman with Lily and Child

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Bouguereau And The Apotheosis Of High-End Consumerism



Top: detail of The Apotheosis of High-End Consumerism. Bottom: thumbnail of the full collage. Click to explore on www.photocollagist.com

What you see here is possibly the largest Bouguereau mashup ever created. The original image by Darrell Taylor, who publishes as photocollagist on DeviantArt, is 42,600 pixels wide, by 6,600 tall. Printed at 300 dpi, the picture is twelve feet (365cm) wide. In Darrell’s own words:

‘This “surreallegory” uses current images and classic works of art to comment on a meta-religion that transcends traditional categorizations of world faiths: the deification of consumer goods–or, more simply, materialism. It was inspired by Jan van Eyck’s altarpiece at Ghent, the writings and etchings of William Blake, and the Home Shopping Network.’

‘Besides images of current photography, I stole/borrowed a number of images from works of art from the 15th to the 19th century [...] But most prominent in this image are the works of the 19th century French academic painter, William-Adolph Bouguereau, whose “licked finish” nudes were contemporary (!) with the explosion of impressionism in other French artists of the time, the etchings, paintings, and poems of the 19th century British revolutionary, William Blake, and the matchless Ghent altarpiece, The Adoration of the Lamb, by Belgium’s 15th century Jan Van Eyck.’

‘I have imagined a dystopian apocalypse, featuring a cult of shopper-believers who bear witness to the transfiguration of consumer goods into heavenly deities, abetted by media’s relentess selling, and supported by the repression and exploitation of 3rd-world slaves, who produce our outsourced marketables. Some may notice a political statement as the dominant subtext.’

Below are some of the original Bouguereau paintings used in the collage. Click to visit the galleries.

lost-pleiad-original.jpg wasps-nest-original.jpg the-wave-original.jpg biblis-original.jpg

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Bouguereau Reduced

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Three Bouguereau paintings, remastered by Joseph Foskolos on Tumblr. Click to visit the site

How much detail can one strip off a classic painting without losing its character? Quite a lot actually. Shown here are works by Greek creative designer Joseph Foskolos who reduced seven Bouguereau paintings to colorful outlines. Despite the total lack of detail each one is instantly recognizable as a work by the French master. Below are thumbnails of them. Click to visit the galleries where you will find the original paintings and dozens more contemporary variations.

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Bouguereau Celebrates 20 Years Of The World Wide Web


Detail of Crashed again! by renatodornas on Worth1000. Click for full image.

Twenty years ago this month, something happened that changed the digital world forever: CERN published a statement that made the technology behind the World Wide Web available to use, by anybody, on a royalty free basis. Shown here is a suitable Remastered Bouguereau to celebrate the birthday of the WWW. Digital artist renatodornas made this stunning creation for a Pygmalion contest on Worth1000 in 2005. Participants were challenged to “Photoshop a character from a famous painting or statue doing everyday things in a modern setting.

Crashed again! was the rightful winner among the 57 contest entries. The work is based on Bouguereau’s 1900 painting Petite Maraudeuse (Little Thief). Interesting (but probably not intentional) detail is that the girl in the original painting has been caught stealing a pear, while in the contemporary version she’s computing on… an Apple.

Below you can compare the two versions. Click the first image to visit the gallery where you will find many more remastered versions of the original painting. Click the second to view Crashed again! on Worth1000.

little-thief-original.jpg Crashed again!

Also, this month marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. What started as a timid attempt to catalogue remastered versions of William Bouguereau’s paintings has turned out to become the world’s largest online museum of “Modern Takes On William Bouguereau’s Masterpieces”. There are now 2,666 Remastered Bouguereaus in 220 galleries!

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Happy Bouguereau Birthday To Kirsten Dunst


Detail of Kirsten Dunst by Dr_Jones on Worth1000. Click for full image

Kirsten Caroline Dunst (born April 30, 1982 – turning 31 today) is an American/German actress, singer and model. At the age of 12, Dunst gained widespread recognition playing the role of vampire Claudia in Interview with the Vampire (1994), a performance for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the Saturn Award for Best Actress for her performance in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011).

Shown here is a portrait of the actress, made by Dr_Jones for a Modern Renaissance contest on Worth1000, in 2003. The image, based on Bouguereau’s Le Travail Interrompu (Work Interrupted, 1891), won eighth prize. Compare it below with the original painting. Click the first image to visit the gallery where you will find over twenty contemporary variations. Click the second to view it bigger on Worth1000.

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Happy Bouguereau Birthday To Michelle Pfeiffer


Detail of Lady Michelle by Rihannon Rose on DeviantArt. Click for full image

April 29 is the birthday of American actress Michelle Marie Pfeiffer [wiki]. Born in 1958 she turns 55 on that day in 2013. Pfeiffer made her film debut in 1980 in The Hollywood Knights, but first garnered mainstream attention with her performance in Scarface (1983). Pfeiffer received Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actress for Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Best Actress in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and Love Field (1992).

Shown above is Michelle Pfeiffer taking a cameo role in Bouguereau’s 1891 painting Boucles d’Oreilles (The earrings). The portrait was made by American digital artist Rihannon Rose, who publishes as starrstrukk911 on DeviantArt. The picture is also very similar to an entry in a Modern Renaissance contest on Worth1000 in 2009, submitted by torgar, who may or may not be the same artist. Both versions are shown below, next to the original Bouguereau painting. Click to discover more.

earrings-original.jpg Michelle Pfeiffer Lady Michelle

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