Faneuse

William-Adolphe Bouguereau painted this outstanding portrait of peasant woman in 1869 naming it 'Faneuse' other wise know as 'Hay-maker'.

Bouguereau's love for female portraits shows he pays exceptional attention to detail.

His use of soft bristle brushes means he can create amazing detail within the process of the picture. This picture is about a working woman hard at work.

As you can see her hair is tied back with a tatty red cloth and her sleeves are pushed up reveling her elbows. With a manly posture and stern look on her face, the painting indicates that this woman is not afraid of getting stuck in to hard graft.

Not only does William-Adolphe Bouguereau's wonderful art work excel when painting woman, his breath taking capturing of trees and wild shrubbery are flawless also.

In this picture and many of his other paintings, he captures this wildness within in the background when painting woman, children or even angels.

In portraits, not only do you need an excellent eye for detail but you have to be able to capture personality and feelings.

Bouguereau has mastered this fine art after years of painting extraordinary illustrations; they allow your imagination to take part by letting you decided what the people in the paintings could be thinking about, or the next move they are about to make.

He brings the paintings to life simply because he is an excellent artist full of knowledge and understanding, painting his pictures as close to real life as he possibly can.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau has excellent knowledge on contouring; accompanying this with detailed pencil studies and oil sketches meant his results captured the precise rendering of the human body.

Bouguereau's paintings were all done using similar techniques; one of his paintings was very similar to 'Hay-maker' this was named 'Young shepherdess' painted in 1868 which was then followed by 'Young shepherdess standing' in 1887; all with a similar style and prop but unique in their own special ways.