Style Imitating Art | At the Edge of the Brook by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

This was much more challenging than I expected, but thankfully this purple dress arrived just in time and I pulled it off!

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Marsha chose this week’s art inspiration because the artist is one of her favorites. She recently used one of this artist’s other paintings for her docent graduation tour at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. 

The Artwork

At the Edge of the Brook by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

About the Artist: William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter born on November 30, 1825, in La Rochelle, France, to Théodore Bouguereau and Marie Bonnin (known as Adeline). He had an older brother, Alfred; a younger sister, Marie, who died when she was 7; and another younger sister, Kitty. His family were merchants of wine and olive oil. When he was 12, William-Adolphe was sent to live with his Uncle Eugène who was a priest. Under his uncle’s care, he developed a great love for nature, literature, and religion. In 1839, the 14 year old William-Adolphe was sent to a Catholic college in Pons to study for the priesthood where he also learned to draw and paint.

He reluctantly left his studies and returned to his family who was living in Bordeaux, where he met a local artist and enrolled at the Municipal School of Drawing and Painting in 1841. While studying in Bordeaux, he also worked as a shop assistant hand coloring lithographs and creating small paintings for reproduction. He very quickly was recognized as the best student in his art classes and decided to move to Paris to work as an artist.

In order to finance his move to Paris, Bouguereau sold 33 oil paintings in three months. All of these early oil paintings were unsigned with only one being found and verified as his. However, before moving to Paris, he first returned to visit his uncle in 1845. He arrived in Paris in March 1846, just 20 years old.

In 1856, he began living with one of his models, 19 year old Nelly Monchablon, who was 12 years his junior. As an unmarried couple living together, they kept their relationship secret. The couple had three children, Henriette (born April 1857), Georges (born January 1859), and Jeanne (born December 25, 1861). On May 24, 1866, William and Nelly married quietly because most assumed they were already married by this point. Eight days after their wedding, their youngest child, 4 year old Jeanne, died from tuberculosis. The mourning couple went to La Rochelle where Bouguereau painted a portrait of Jeanne in 1868.

In October 1868, the couple gave birth to their fourth child, Adolphe who they called Paul. But their son Georges was in poor health which resulted in his death on June 19, 1875, at just 16 years old. They had a fifth child, Maurice, in 1876, but Nelly’s health was declining by this time. The doctors suspected that she might have contracted tuberculosis and she died on April 3, 1877, at the age of 39 or 40. Two months later, baby Maurice also passed away.

Soon after Nelly’s death, Bouguereau’s mother made him promise not to remarry during her lifetime because she did not approve of his intended new wife, Elizabeth Jane Gardner, a student of his whom he had known for a decade. His mother lived for 19 years after this promise. Shortly after her death and a 19 year engagement, Bouguereau and Gardner married in Paris in June 1896. Elizabeth continued working as Bouguereau’s personal secretary and also helped with organizing the household staff.

In early 1899, his son Paul also contracted tuberculosis and died in his father’s home in April 1900 at the age of 32. Henriette was the only child of five to survive her father. Bouguereau died on August 19, 1905, from heart disease. He was 79. His second wife Elizabeth, who stayed by his side until the end, passed away on January 28, 1922, at the age of 84.

Bouguereau had a long and successful career, enjoying significant popularity in France and the United States as well as receiving multiple official honors and top prices for his artwork. However, his art fell out of favor by the early 20th century, mostly due to a shift in cultural tastes. A revival of figure painting in the 1980s led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his works. He completed 822 known paintings in his lifetime but many of them have never been located.

About the Art: At the Edge of the Brook

At the Edge of the Brook is an 1875 oil on canvas by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. He created another oil painting in 1879 with the same title but it features a young boy and young girl sitting on what appears to be the same rock.

He painted this portrait of a girl in the style of Academicism. This piece “vividly encapsulates the genre’s emphasis on technical precision and idealized beauty.”

“The artwork portrays a young girl seated on a rock at the edge of a brook, set against a tranquil, wooded backdrop. Her serene yet slightly somber expression is captured with remarkable realism and attention to detail. The girl is adorned in a modest, slightly rumpled white blouse and a purple dress, with a wreath of bright red flowers crowning her dark hair. Her bare feet rest naturally on the ground, indicating a sense of ease and connection to the natural surroundings. The interplay of light and shadow on her face and clothing demonstrates Bouguereau’s mastery in rendering lifelike textures and mood, creating a harmonious and evocative scene that invites viewers to pause and reflect on the beauty and simplicity of the moment captured.” -Artchive

The painting measures 137 cm (53.9 in) by 86 cm (33.8 in) and is currently housed at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Japan.

About My Outfit

This purple sundress really saved the day for this challenge. I love purple and it is the school color for my kids so I don’t really understand why it is so lacking in my wardrobe. Also, the purple things that I do have aren’t the same gorgeous shade of purple as the girl’s skirt in the painting.

Before this dress arrived, I started with this purple slip skirt, a white button down shirt, and this striped ruana. It looked awful so I ditched it. Next I moved onto this short purple dress with the black and purple striped duster that I ended up wearing. This combination wasn’t terrible, but I really wanted a long dress to reflect the style of the girl’s clothing.

And then just in time, this long purple dress arrived. I ordered it with some rewards points which always makes me happy. While it is not quite the same shade of purple as the girl’s skirt, it’s purple enough and it worked so much better with the long striped duster, too. To coordinate with the black of my duster, I wore my black rope sandals and a black necklace with a gold feather charm. I was due for a change of toenail polish, so I left the my toes naked like the girl’s for these photos.

To represent the girl’s white top, I added my white macrame belt, ivory clay earrings, and my white cowgirl hat with the rose print (which represents the flowers in her hair). I had planned to clip a few roses that were blooming on my rose bush to make a floral crown for myself instead of a hat. But when I went to snip them, they were gone! In fact, all of the blooms in my front flower beds were gone. All of my lilies and all of my roses. It looked like someone else clipped them all but we couldn’t understand why. After some investigation and a lot of laughter, we finally discovered it was a deer! It decimated every bloom I had as well as most of my neighbors’ gardens on both sides of my house. Hungry little critter made me mad! My flowers were so pretty and then suddenly they were just gone! Gladly, I have a bunch of new rose buds popping up and a few new lilies have just bloomed as well.

So how did I do with this challenge? And have you ever lost your flower garden to a deer?

I hope you all enjoyed this round of Style Imitating Art. Be sure to check out how Marsha and Salazar have styled their outfits inspired by this painting. If you want to play along and create your own art inspired outfit, please submit your photos to Marsha (mlrbanks57@gmail.com) by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, and she will feature your outfit in her style gallery on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Until then, happy styling! 

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

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