O Nascimento de Vênus

Bouguereau painted his Venus in 1879, and it helps to know what else was in the Paris air that year. The Impressionists had already held several of their own rebel exhibitions, showing loose, quick, modern-looking canvases. Bouguereau went the other way entirely, polishing his surface until no brushstroke shows at all, and reaching back to antiquity for his subject. This is not really the birth itself but Venus arriving, standing on a scallop shell drawn across calm water, adjusting her hair in the old contrapposto pose of Venus Anadyomene. Around her, sea nymphs and small winged cupids fill the sky and centaurs blow into conch shells to announce her. He was the most admired academic painter of his day and the most attacked by the new generation, and this is usually called his masterpiece.