The Wasps Nest by Bouguereau

The Wasps Nest (also Le Guepier or The Invation) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1893, is a large oil on canvas painting of a female figure posed as Venus de Milo in blue drapery, swarmed by flying, winged cupids in a green forest landscape. The adoring cupids aim their bows and arrows at their intended target, while Venus gazes towards the sky and smiles. Bouguereau’s academic painting technique combines subject and figures from ancient, Classical Greece and Rome with polished, modern realism, painted from life. William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 - 1905) was a French painter who trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and the Villa Medici in Rome. He exhibited with great success in the French Salon and became one of most renowned and wealthy artists of his era. Bouguereau worked in the French Academic tradition, a school of late 19th century modern painters who concentrated on the human figure and classical subjects in highly polished works of optical realism. His main interest was the female figure, usually rendered in classical, finely drawn contours, in subjects that were often sentimental. Bouguereau's reputation diminished greatly in the 20th century with the rise of Modernism, but interest in his traditional figurative paintings has surged again in recent years.