Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
movement in
19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the
Impressionists
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
and the
Cubists
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character:
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...
,
seascapes,
hunting scenes,
nudes, and
still lifes. Courbet, a socialist, was active in the political developments of France. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death four years later.
Biography
![Gustave Courbet - Self-Portrait (Man with Leather Belt) - WGA05486](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Gustave_Courbet_-_Self-Portrait_%28Man_with_Leather_Belt%29_-_WGA05486.jpg)
Gustave Courbet was born in 1819 to Régis and Sylvie Oudot Courbet in Ornans (
department of Doubs). Anti-monarchical feelings prevailed in the household. (His maternal grandfather fought in the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
.) Courbet's sisters, Zoé, Zélie, and Juliette were his first models for drawing and painting. After moving to Paris he often returned home to Ornans to hunt, fish, and find inspiration.
Courbet went to Paris in 1839 and worked at the studio of Steuben and Hesse. An independent spirit, he soon left, preferring to develop his own style by studying the paintings of Spanish, Flemish and French masters in the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
, and painting copies of their work.
![Courbet Autoportrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Courbet_Autoportrait.jpg)
Courbet's first works were an ''
Odalisque
An odalisque (, tr, odalık) was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the ...
'' inspired by the writing of
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
and a ''Lélia'' illustrating
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...
, but he soon abandoned literary influences, choosing instead to base his paintings on observed reality. Among his paintings of the early 1840s are several
self-portraits, Romantic in conception, in which the artist portrayed himself in various roles. These include ''Self-Portrait with Black Dog'' (c. 1842–44, accepted for exhibition at the 1844
Paris Salon), the theatrical ''Self-Portrait'' which is also known as ''Desperate Man'' (c. 1843–45), ''Lovers in the Countryside'' (1844,
Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
), ''The Sculptor'' (1845), ''The Wounded Man'' (1844–54,
Musée d'Orsay, Paris), ''The Cellist, Self-Portrait'' (1847,
Nationalmuseum,
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, shown at the 1848 Salon), and ''Man with a Pipe'' (1848–49,
Musée Fabre
The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern French city of Montpellier, capital of the Hérault ''département''.
The museum was founded by François-Xavier Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825. Beginning in 2003, the museum underwent a 61.2 mi ...
, Montpellier).
Trips to the Netherlands and Belgium in 1846–47 strengthened Courbet's belief that painters should portray the life around them, as
Rembrandt,
Hals and other
Dutch masters
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence.
The new Dutch Repub ...
had. By 1848, he had gained supporters among the younger critics, the
Neo-romantics and Realists, notably
Champfleury
Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (17 September 1821, in Laon, Aisne – 6 December 1889, in Sèvres), who wrote under the name Champfleury (), was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting ...
.
Courbet achieved his first Salon success in 1849 with his painting ''
After Dinner at Ornans
''After Dinner at Ornans'' (French - ''L'Après-dînée à Ornans'') is a 195 by 257 cm painting by Gustave Courbet, painted in winter 1848–1849 in Ornans. It is now in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. Decades later, ''Mother Anthony's Tave ...
''. The work, reminiscent of
Chardin and
Le Nain
The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain (c.1600–1648), Louis Le Nain (c.1603–1648), and Mathieu Le Nain (1607–1677). They produced genre works, portraits and portrait miniatures.
Lives and work
The ...
, earned Courbet a gold medal and was purchased by the state. The gold medal meant that his works would no longer require jury approval for exhibition at the Salon—an exemption Courbet enjoyed until 1857 (when the rule changed).
In 1849–50, Courbet painted ''
The Stone Breakers
''The Stone Breakers'' (french: Les Casseurs de pierres) was an 1849 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was a work of realism, depicting two peasants, a young man and an old man, breaking rocks.
''The Stone Breakers'' was first ex ...
'' (destroyed in the Allied
Bombing of Dresden
The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Roya ...
in 1945), which
Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Soci ...
admired as an icon of peasant life; it has been called "the first of his great works".
The painting was inspired by a scene Courbet witnessed on the roadside. He later explained to Champfleury and the writer Francis Wey: "It is not often that one encounters so complete an expression of poverty and so, right then and there I got the idea for a painting. I told them to come to my studio the next morning."
Realism
![Gustave Courbet - La vague - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Gustave_Courbet_-_La_vague_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Courbet's work belonged neither to the predominant
Romantic nor
Neoclassical schools.
History painting, which the
Paris Salon esteemed as a painter's highest calling, did not interest him, for he believed that "the artists of one century
rebasically incapable of reproducing the aspect of a past or future century ..."
Instead, he maintained that the only possible source for living art is the artist's own experience.
He and
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...
would find inspiration painting the life of peasants and workers.
Courbet painted
figurative compositions, landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes. He courted controversy by addressing social issues in his work, and by painting subjects that were considered vulgar, such as the rural bourgeoisie, peasants, and working conditions of the poor. His work, along with that of
Honoré Daumier
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...
and
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...
, became known as ''
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
''. For Courbet realism dealt not with the perfection of line and form, but entailed spontaneous and rough handling of paint, suggesting direct observation by the artist while portraying the irregularities in
nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
. He depicted the harshness of life, and in doing so challenged contemporary academic ideas of art. One of the distinctive features of Courbet's Realism was his lifelong attachment to his native province, the Franche-Comté, and of his birthplace, Ornans.
''The Stone Breakers''
![Gustave Courbet - The Stonebreakers - WGA05457](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Gustave_Courbet_-_The_Stonebreakers_-_WGA05457.jpg)
Considered to be the first of Courbet's great works, ''The Stone Breakers'' of 1849 is an example of social realism that caused a sensation when it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1850. The work was based on two men, one young and one old, whom Courbet discovered engaged in backbreaking labor on the side of the road when he returned to Ornans for an eight-month visit in October 1848. On his inspiration, Courbet told his friends and art critics Francis Wey and Jules Champfleury, "It is not often that one encounters so complete an expression of poverty and so, right then and there I got the idea for a painting."
While other artists had depicted the plight of the rural poor, Courbet's peasants are not idealized like those in works such as Breton's ''The Gleaners''.
In February 1945, the work was destroyed during World War II, along with 154 other pictures, when a transport vehicle moving the pictures to the castle of Königstein, near Dresden, was bombed by Allied forces.
''A Burial at Ornans''
![Gustave Courbet - A Burial at Ornans - Google Art Project 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Gustave_Courbet_-_A_Burial_at_Ornans_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg)
The Salon of 1850–1851 found him triumphant with ''The Stone Breakers'', the ''Peasants of Flagey'' and ''A Burial at Ornans''. The ''Burial'', one of Courbet's most important works, records the funeral of his grand uncle which he attended in September 1848. People who attended the funeral were the models for the painting. Previously, models had been used as actors in historical narratives, but in ''Burial'' Courbet said he "painted the very people who had been present at the interment, all the townspeople". The result is a realistic presentation of them and life in Ornans.
The vast painting, measuring , drew both praise and fierce denunciations from critics and the public, in part because it upset convention by depicting a prosaic ritual on a scale which would previously have been reserved for a religious or royal subject.
According to art historian Sarah Faunce, "In Paris, the ''Burial'' was judged as a work that had thrust itself into the grand tradition of history painting, like an upstart in dirty boots crashing a genteel party, and in terms of that tradition it was, of course, found wanting."
The painting lacks the sentimental rhetoric that was expected in a
genre work
Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...
: Courbet's mourners make no theatrical gestures of grief, and their faces seemed more caricatured than ennobled. The critics accused Courbet of a deliberate pursuit of ugliness.
Eventually, the public grew more interested in the new Realist approach, and the lavish, decadent fantasy of Romanticism lost popularity. Courbet well understood the importance of the painting, and said of it, "''Burial at Ornans'' was in reality the burial of romanticism."
![Gustave Courbet daguerreotype Nadar](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Gustave_Courbet_daguerreotype_Nadar.jpg)
Courbet became a celebrity and was spoken of as a genius, a "terrible socialist" and a "savage". He actively encouraged the public's perception of him as an unschooled peasant, while his ambition, his bold pronouncements to journalists, and his insistence on depicting his own life in his art gave him a reputation for unbridled vanity.
Courbet associated his ideas of
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
in art with political
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
, and, having gained an audience, he promoted democratic and socialist ideas by writing politically motivated essays and dissertations. His familiar visage was the object of frequent caricature in the popular French press.
In 1850, Courbet wrote to a friend:
During the 1850s, Courbet painted numerous figurative works using common folk and friends as his subjects, such as ''Village Damsels'' (1852), ''
The Wrestlers'' (1853), ''
The Bathers'' (1853), ''The Sleeping Spinner'' (1853), and ''
The Wheat Sifters
''The Wheat Sifters'' ( French: ''Les Cribleuses de Blé'') is an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1854 by the French Realist painter Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French ...
'' (1854).
''The Artist's Studio''
![Courbet LAtelier du peintre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Courbet_LAtelier_du_peintre.jpg)
In 1855, Courbet submitted fourteen paintings for exhibition at the ''
Exposition Universelle''. Three were rejected for lack of space, including ''A Burial at Ornans'' and his other monumental canvas ''
The Artist's Studio''.
Refusing to be denied, Courbet took matters into his own hands. He displayed forty of his paintings, including ''The Artist's Studio'', in his gallery called ''The Pavilion of Realism'' (Pavillon du Réalisme) which was a temporary structure that he erected next door to the official
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
-like ''Exposition Universelle''.
The work is an allegory of Courbet's life as a painter, seen as a heroic venture, in which he is flanked by friends and admirers on the right, and challenges and opposition to the left. Friends on the right include the
art critics
Champfleury
Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (17 September 1821, in Laon, Aisne – 6 December 1889, in Sèvres), who wrote under the name Champfleury (), was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting ...
, and
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...
, and art collector
Alfred Bruyas
Alfred Bruyas (15 August 1821 – 1 January 1877) was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time, among them Gustave Courbet. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier.
Born Jacques Louis ...
. On the left are figures (priest, prostitute, grave digger, merchant, and others) who represent what Courbet described in a letter to Champfleury as "the other world of trivial life, the people, misery, poverty, wealth, the exploited and the exploiters, the people who live off death."
In the foreground of the left-hand side is a man with dogs, who was not mentioned in Courbet's letter to Champfleury. X-rays show he was painted later, but his role in the painting is important: he is an allegory of the then-current French Emperor,
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
, identified by his famous hunting dogs and iconic twirled mustache. By placing him on the left, Courbet publicly shows his disdain for the emperor and depicts him as a criminal, suggesting that his "ownership" of France is an illegal one.
Although artists like
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
were ardent champions of his effort, the public went to the show mostly out of curiosity and to deride him. Attendance and sales were disappointing, but Courbet's status as a hero to the French
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
became assured. He was admired by the American
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
, and he became an inspiration to the younger generation of French artists including
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born ...
and the
Impressionist painters. ''The Artist's Studio'' was recognized as a masterpiece by Delacroix, Baudelaire, and Champfleury, if not by the public.
Realist manifesto
Courbet wrote a Realist manifesto for the introduction to the catalogue of this independent, personal exhibition, echoing the tone of the period's political manifestos. In it, he asserts his goal as an artist is "to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch according to my own estimation."
Notoriety
![Louis Émile Benassit--Courbet caricature--from Le Boulevard issue 1-- 1861](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Louis_%C3%89mile_Benassit--Courbet_caricature--from_Le_Boulevard_issue_1--_1861.jpg)
In the Salon of 1857, Courbet showed six paintings. These included ''
Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine (Summer)'', depicting two prostitutes under a tree, as well as the first of many hunting scenes Courbet was to paint during the remainder of his life: ''Hind at Bay in the Snow'' and ''The Quarry''.
''Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine'', painted in 1856, provoked a scandal. Art critics accustomed to conventional, "timeless" nude women in landscapes were shocked by Courbet's depiction of modern women casually displaying their undergarments.
By exhibiting sensational works alongside hunting scenes, of the sort that had brought popular success to the English painter
Edwin Landseer
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. However, his best-known works are the lion sculptures at the bas ...
, Courbet guaranteed himself "both notoriety and sales". During the 1860s, Courbet painted a series of increasingly
erotic works such as ''
Femme nue couchée
''Femme nue couchée'' (french: Nude Reclining Woman) is an 1862 painting by French Realist painter Gustave Courbet (1819–1877). It depicts a young dark-haired woman reclining on a couch, wearing only a pair of shoes and stockings. Behind her, ...
''.
This culminated in ''
The Origin of the World (L'Origine du monde)'' (1866), which depicts female
genitalia
A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...
and was not publicly exhibited until 1988, and ''
Sleep
Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...
'' (1866), featuring two women in bed. The latter painting became the subject of a police report when it was exhibited by a picture dealer in 1872.
Until about 1861, Napoléon's regime had exhibited authoritarian characteristics, using press censorship to prevent the spread of opposition, manipulating elections, and depriving Parliament of the right to free debate or any real power. In the 1860s, however,
Napoléon III made more concessions to placate his liberal opponents. This change began by allowing free debates in Parliament and public reports of parliamentary debates. Press censorship, too, was relaxed and culminated in the appointment of the Liberal
Émile Ollivier
Olivier Émile Ollivier (; 2 July 182520 August 1913) was a French statesman. Starting as an avid republican opposed to Emperor Napoleon III, he pushed the Emperor toward liberal reforms and in turn came increasingly into Napoleon's grip. He en ...
, previously a leader of the opposition to Napoléon's regime, as the ''de facto'' Prime Minister in 1870. As a sign of appeasement to the Liberals who admired Courbet, Napoleon III nominated him to the
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
in 1870. His refusal of the cross of the Legion of Honour angered those in power but made him immensely popular with those who opposed the prevailing regime.
File:Gustave Courbet, Femme nue couchée, 1862.jpg, ''Femme nue couchée
''Femme nue couchée'' (french: Nude Reclining Woman) is an 1862 painting by French Realist painter Gustave Courbet (1819–1877). It depicts a young dark-haired woman reclining on a couch, wearing only a pair of shoes and stockings. Behind her, ...
'', 1862
File:Gustave Courbet - Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Portrait of Jo (La belle Irlandaise)'', 1865–66, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, a painting of Joanna Hiffernan
Joanna Hiffernan (1843 – 1886) or Joanna Heffernan was an Irish artists' model and muse who was romantically linked with American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler and French painter Gustave Courbet. In addition to being an artists' ...
, the probable model for ''Sleep''
File:The Sleepers by Gustave Courbet.jpg, ''Le Sommeil
''Le Sommeil'' (translated in English variously as ''The Sleepers'' and ''Sleep'') is an eroticDorothy M. KosinskiGustave Courbet's ''The Sleepers.'' The Lesbian Image in Nineteenth Century French Art and Literature Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 9, N ...
(Sleep)'', 1866, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
File:Gustave Courbet - Young Bather.jpg, ''Young Bather'', 1866
File:Origin-of-the-World.jpg, '' The Origin of the World'' (''L'Origine du monde''), 1866, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Courbet and the Paris Commune
![PereDuchesneIllustre7 1 0](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/PereDuchesneIllustre7_1_0.png)
On 4 September 1870, during the
Franco-Prussian War, Courbet made a proposal that later came back to haunt him. He wrote a letter to the Government of National Defense, proposing that the column in the
Place Vendôme
The Place Vendôme (), earlier known as Place Louis-le-Grand, and also as Place Internationale, is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It i ...
, erected by Napoleon I to honour the victories of the French Army, be taken down. He wrote:
Courbet proposed that the Column be moved to a more appropriate place, such as the
Hotel des Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides ( en, "house of invalids"), commonly called Les Invalides (), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as ...
, a military hospital. He also wrote an open letter addressed to the German Army and to German artists, proposing that German and French cannons should be melted down and crowned with a liberty cap, and made into a new monument on Place Vendôme, dedicated to the federation of the German and French people. The Government of National Defense did nothing about his suggestion to tear down the column, but it was not forgotten.
On 18 March, in the aftermath of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, a revolutionary government called the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
briefly took power in the city. Courbet played an active part and organized a Federation of Artists, which held its first meeting on 5 April in the Grand Amphitheater of the School of Medicine. Some three hundred to four hundred painters, sculptors, architects, and decorators attended. There were some famous names on the list of members, including
André Gill
André Gill (17 October 1840 – 1 May 1885) was a French caricaturist. Born Louis-Alexandre Gosset de Guînes at Paris, the son of the Comte de Guînes and Sylvie-Adeline Gosset, Gill studied at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. H ...
,
Honoré Daumier
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...
,
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,
Eugène Pottier
Eugene is a common male given name that comes from the Greek εὐγενής (''eugenēs''), "noble", literally "well-born", from εὖ (''eu''), "well" and γένος (''genos''), "race, stock, kin".Jules Dalou
Aimé-Jules Dalou (31 December 183815 April 1902) was a 19th-century French sculptor, admired for his perceptiveness, execution, and unpretentious realism.
Early life
Born in Paris to a working-class family of Huguenot background, he was raised ...
, and
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born ...
. Manet was not in Paris during the Commune and did not attend, and Corot, who was seventy-five years old, stayed in a country house and his studio during the Commune, not taking part in the political events.
Courbet chaired the meeting and proposed that the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
and the Museum of the Luxembourg Palace, the two major art museums of Paris, closed during the uprising, be reopened as soon as possible and that the traditional annual exhibit called the Salon be held as in years past, but with radical differences. He proposed that the Salon should be free of any government interference or rewards to preferred artists; no medals or government commissions would be given. Furthermore, he called for the abolition of the most famous state institutions of French art; the
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...
, the School of Rome, the School of Athens, and the Fine Arts section of the
Institute of France
The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute m ...
.
On 12 April, the Executive Committee of the Commune gave Courbet, though he was not yet officially a member of the Commune, the assignment of opening the museums and organizing the Salon. They issued the following decree at the same meeting: "The Column of the Place Vendôme will be demolished."
On 16 April, special elections were held to replace more moderate members of the Commune who had resigned their seats, and Courbet was elected as a delegate for the 6th
arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements' ...
. He was given the title of Delegate of Fine Arts, and on 21 April he was also made a member of the Commission on Education. At the meeting of the Commission on 27 April, the minutes reported that Courbet requested the demolition of the Vendôme column be carried out and that the column would be replaced by an allegorical figure representing the taking of power of the Commune on 18 March.
Nonetheless, Courbet was a dissident by nature, and he was soon in opposition with the majority of the Commune members on some of its measures. He was one of a minority of Commune Members who opposed the creation of a Committee on Public Safety, modeled on the committee of the same name which carried out the
Reign of Terror during the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
.
Courbet opposed the Commune on another more serious matter; the arrest of his friend Gustave Chaudey, a prominent socialist, magistrate, and journalist, whose portrait Courbet had painted. The popular Commune newspaper, ''
Le Père Duchesne
''Le Père Duchesne'' (; "Old Man Duchesne" or "Father Duchesne") was an extreme radical newspaper during the French Revolution, edited by Jacques Hébert, who published 385 issues from September 1790 until eleven days before his death by guill ...
'', accused Chaudey, when he was briefly deputy mayor of the 9th arrondissement before the Commune was formed, of ordering soldiers to fire on a crowd that had surrounded the Hotel de Ville. Courbet's opposition was of no use; on 23 May 1871, in the final days of the Commune, Chaudey was shot by a Commune firing squad. According to some sources Courbet resigned from the Commune in protest.
On 13 May, on the proposal of Courbet, the Paris house of
Adolphe Thiers, the chief executive of the French government, was demolished, and his art collection confiscated. Courbet proposed that the confiscated art be given to the Louvre and other museums, but the director of the Louvre refused to accept it. On 16 May, just nine days before the fall of the Commune, in a large ceremony with military bands and photographers, the Vendôme column was pulled down and broke into pieces. Some witnesses said Courbet was there, others denied it. The following day, the Federation of Artists debated dismissing directors of the Louvre and of the Luxembourg museums, suspected by some in the Commune of having secret contacts with the French government, and appointed new heads of the museums.
According to one legend, Courbet defended the Louvre and other museums against "looting mobs", but there are no records of any such attacks on the museums. The only real threat to the Louvre came during "Bloody Week", 21–28 May 1871, when a unit of Communards, led by a Commune general, Jules Bergeret, set fire to the
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...
, next to the Louvre. The fire spread to the library of the Louvre, which was destroyed, but the efforts of museum curators and firemen saved the art gallery.
After the final suppression of the Commune by the French army on 28 May, Courbet went into hiding in the apartments of different friends. He was arrested on 7 June. At his trial before a military tribunal on 14 August, Courbet argued that he had only joined the Commune to pacify it and that he had wanted to move the Vendôme Column, not destroy it. He said he had only belonged to the Commune for a short period, and rarely attended its meetings. He was convicted, but given a lighter sentence than other Commune leaders; six months in prison and a fine of five hundred Francs. Serving part of his sentence in the prison of
Saint-Pelagie in Paris, he was allowed an easel and paints, but he could not have models pose for him. He did a famous series of still-life paintings of flowers and fruit.
Exile and death
![Gustave Courbet - The Trout - WGA05474](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Gustave_Courbet_-_The_Trout_-_WGA05474.jpg)
Courbet completed his prison sentence on 2 March 1872, but his problems caused by the destruction of the Vendôme Column were still not over. In 1873, the newly elected president of the Republic,
Patrice Mac-Mahon
Marie Edme Patrice Maurice de MacMahon, marquis de MacMahon, duc de Magenta (; 13 June 1808 – 17 October 1893) was a French general and politician, with the distinction of Marshal of France. He served as Chief of State of France from 1873 to 1 ...
, announced plans to rebuild the column, with the cost to be paid by Courbet. Unable to pay, Courbet went into a self-imposed exile in Switzerland to avoid bankruptcy. In the following years, he participated in Swiss regional and national exhibitions. Surveilled by the Swiss intelligence service, he enjoyed in the small Swiss art world the reputation as head of the "realist school" and inspired younger artists such as
Auguste Baud-Bovy
Auguste Baud-Bovy (13 February 1848, Geneva - 3 June 1899, Davos) was a Swiss painter who specialized in landscapes, village scenes and shepherds.
Biography
His father, Henri-Georges Baud, was the director of a well known jewelry store (Le B ...
and
Ferdinand Hodler
Ferdinand Hodler (March 14, 1853 – May 19, 1918) was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century.
His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of ...
.
Important works from this period include several paintings of
trout
Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...
, "hooked and bleeding from the gills",
that have been interpreted as allegorical self-portraits of the exiled artist.
In his final years, Courbet painted landscapes, including several scenes of
water mysteriously emerging from the depths of the earth in the
Jura Mountains
The Jura Mountains ( , , , ; french: Massif du Jura; german: Juragebirge; it, Massiccio del Giura, rm, Montagnas da Jura) are a sub-alpine mountain range a short distance north of the Western Alps and mainly demarcate a long part of the Frenc ...
of the
France–Switzerland border.
Courbet also worked on sculpture during his exile. Previously, in the early 1860s, he had produced a few sculptures, one of which – the ''Fisherman of Chavots'' (1862) – he donated to Ornans for a public fountain, but it was removed after Courbet's arrest.
In May 1877, the state set the final cost of reconstructing the Vendôme Column at 323,000 francs for Courbet to repay in annual installments of 10,000 francs for the next 33 years. On 31 December 1877, a day before the first installment was due, Courbet died, aged 58, in
La Tour-de-Peilz
La Tour-de-Peilz () is a municipality in Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. The city is located on Lake Geneva between Montreux and Vevey (their agglomeration counting some 80,000 inhabitants).
History
In the ...
, Switzerland, of a
liver disease
Liver disease, or hepatic disease, is any of many diseases of the liver. If long-lasting it is termed chronic liver disease. Although the diseases differ in detail, liver diseases often have features in common.
Signs and symptoms
Some of the si ...
aggravated by heavy drinking.
Gallery
File:Selbstbildnis mit schwarzem Hund.jpg, ''Self-Portrait with a Black Dog
''Self-Portrait with a Black Dog'', ''Portrait of the Artist'' or ''Courbet with a Black Dog'' (French - ''Courbet au chien noir'') is an 1842 painting by Gustave Courbet, retouched by the artist in 1844. It is now in the Petit Palais in Paris.
H ...
'', 1842
File:Gustave Courbet - Self-Portrait (Courbet with Black Dog) - WGA05478.jpg, ''Self-portrait'', 1842
File:Gustave Courbet - Le Désespéré (1843).jpg, '' Self-portrait (The Desperate Man)'', c. 1843–1845
File:The Cellist, Self-Portrait 1847 Gustave Courbet.jpg, ''The Cellist, Self-portrait'', 1847, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
File:Gustave Courbet - Artist at His Easel - WGA05523.jpg, ''Artist at His Easel'', c. 1847–48, charcoal on paper
File:Gustave Courbet - Portrait of Paul Ansout - WGA05479.jpg, ''Portrait of Paul Ansout'', c. 1842–43
File:Gustave Courbet - Portrait of H. J. van Wisselingh - WGA05487.jpg, ''Portrait of H. J. van Wisselingh'', 1846
File:Gustave Courbet - Zélie Courbet.jpg, ''Zélie Courbet'', 1847
File:Gustave Courbet - Portrait of Baudelaire - WGA05490.jpg, ''Portrait of Baudelaire'', 1848
File:Proudhon-children.jpg, ''Proudhon and His Children
''Proudhon and His Children'' is an oil on canvas group portrait by Gustave Courbet, created in 1865, now held in the Petit Palais in Paris. The main figure is a posthumously produced image of French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who appea ...
'', 1865
File:Gustave Courbet, French - Spanish Woman - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Spanish Woman'', 1854
File:Gustave Courbet - Gustave Mathieu.JPG, ''Gustave Mathieu'', 1869, Sammlung Oskar Reinhart ''Am Römerholz
The Reinhart Collection formed by Oskar Reinhart is now held in a museum in his old house, "Am Römerholz" in Winterthur, Zurich Canton, Switzerland, as well as the Museum Oskar Reinhart in the centre of Winterthur. It belongs to the Swiss Con ...
'', Winterthur
, neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell
, twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria), La ...
File:Courbet-castromaya.jpg, ''Cliffs at Etretat, After the Storm'', 1870
File:1869 Courbet Die Woge anagoria.JPG, '' The Wave'', 1870
File:Gustave Courbet 030.jpg, ''Sea Coast in Normandy'', 1867
File:Gustave Courbet, 1857, Le Pont d'Ambrussum, huile sur papier marouflé sur bois, 48 x 63 cm, Musée Fabre.jpg, ''The Pont Ambroix
The Pont Ambroix or Pont d'Ambrussum ( French for ''Ambrussum Bridge'') was a 1st-century BC Roman bridge in the south of France which was part of the Via Domitia. It crossed the Vidourle at Ambrussum, between today's Gallargues-le-Montueux in t ...
Languedoc'', 1857
File:Courbet - Stream in the Jura Mountains (The Torrent), oil on canves, 1872-3.jpg, ''Stream in the Jura Mountains'' (''The Torrent''), 1872–73, Honolulu Museum of Art
The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...
File:Gustave Courbet - Effet de neige (1860s).jpg, ''Snow effect'', c. 1860s
File:The Calm Sea MET DT1973.jpg, '' The Calm Sea'', 1869, Metropolitan Museum of Art
File:Gustave Courbet (French - Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne'', c. 1875
File:Chateau du Chillon.jpg, ''The Castle of Chillon'', 1874
File:Gustave Courbet - Nude Woman with a Dog - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Nude Woman with a Dog (Femme nue au chien)'', c. 1861–62, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
File:Gustave Courbet - La Font (1862).jpg, ''La Font'' (The Source), 1862, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
File:Courbet, Gustave - Woman with White Stockings - c. 1861.jpg, ''Les Bas Blancs, (Woman with White Stockings)'', 1864, Barnes Foundation
The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Penn ...
File:1866 Gustave Courbet - Woman with a Parrot.jpg, ''Woman with a Parrot
''La Femme au perroquet'' (''Woman with a Parrot'') is an oil painting on canvas by French artist Gustave Courbet. It was the first nude by the artist to be accepted by the Paris Salon in 1866 after a previous entry in 1864 was rejected as indec ...
'', 1866, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York
File:The Woman in the Waves MET DT887.jpg, '' The Woman in the Waves'', 1868, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
File:Gustave Courbet - La Source - Musée d'Orsay.jpg, ''The Source'', 1868, Musée d'Orsay
File:Die Hängematte.jpg, ''The Hammock'', 1844
File:Courbet, Gustave - The Sculptor - 1845.jpg, ''The Sculptor'', 1845
File:Gustave Courbet - After Dinner at Ornans - WGA05456.jpg, ''After Dinner at Ornans'', 1849
File:Gustave Courbet 018.jpg, ''The Stone Breakers
''The Stone Breakers'' (french: Les Casseurs de pierres) was an 1849 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was a work of realism, depicting two peasants, a young man and an old man, breaking rocks.
''The Stone Breakers'' was first ex ...
'', 1849
File:Gustave Courbet 002.jpg, ''Farmers of Flagey on the Return From the Market'', 1850, Museum of Art, Besançon
File:Gustave Courbet - The Wrestlers - Google Art Project.jpg, '' The Wrestlers'', 1853, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
File:Gustave Courbet 010.jpg, '' The Meeting ("Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet")'', 1854, Musée Fabre
The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern French city of Montpellier, capital of the Hérault ''département''.
The museum was founded by François-Xavier Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825. Beginning in 2003, the museum underwent a 61.2 mi ...
, Montpellier
File:Gustave Courbet - The Grain Sifters - WGA05464.jpg, '' The Wheat Sifters (Les Cribleuses de blé)'', 1854
File:Gustave Courbet - The Hunt Breakfast - WGA5468.jpg, '' The Hunt Breakfast'', 1858, Wallraf–Richartz Museum
The Wallraf–Richartz Museum (full name in German: ') is one of the three major museums in Cologne, Germany. It houses an art gallery with a collection of fine art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century.
History
The museum ...
, Cologne
File:Fox In The Snow - Courbet (1860).JPG, ''Fox In The Snow'', 1860, Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
File:Gustave Courbet - Trellis - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Trellis'', 1862, Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...
, Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
File:Gustave Courbet 029.jpg, ''Girl with Seagulls'', 1865
File:Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877) The Fishing Boat 1865.jpg, ''The Fishing Boat
''The Fishing Boat'' is an 1865 painting by French painter Gustave Courbet. Done in oil on canvas, the painting depicts a beached fishing boat on the French coastline near Trouville. It is currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of ...
'', 1865, Metropolitan Museum of Art
File:Gustave Courbet - The Greyhounds of the Comte de Choiseul.jpg, ''The Greyhounds of the Comte de Choiseul'', 1866
File:Courbet - L'Hallali du cerf.jpg, '' Killing a Deer'', 1867, Museum of Art, Besançon
Legacy
![Monet dejeunersurlherbe](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Monet_dejeunersurlherbe.jpg)
Courbet was admired by many younger artists.
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
included a portrait of Courbet in his own version of
''Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe'' from 1865–1866 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Courbet's particular kind of realism influenced many artists to follow, notably among them the German painters of the
Leibl circle,
James McNeill Whistler, and
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...
. Courbet's influence can also be seen in the work of
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching.
Hopper created subdued drama ...
, whose ''Bridge in Paris'' (1906) and ''Approaching a City'' (1946) have been described as Freudian echoes of Courbet's ''The Source of the Loue'' and ''The Origin of the World''. His pupils included
Henri Fantin-Latour
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.
Biography
He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-La ...
,
Hector Hanoteau
Hector Charles Auguste Octave Constance Hanoteau (25 May 1823 – 7 April 1890) was a French landscape painter born at Decize in Nièvre. At the École des Beaux-Arts, he was a pupil of Gignoux, and devoted himself chiefly to landscapes, charac ...
and
Olaf Isaachsen
Olaf Wilhelm Isaachsen (May 16, 1835 – September 22, 1893) was a Norwegian landscape and genre painter.
Biography
He was born in Mandal in Vest-Agder county Norway. Isaachsen belonged to a branch of an affluent and educated merchant family fr ...
.
Courbet once wrote this in a letter:
Courbet and Cubism
![Gustave Courbet 027](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Gustave_Courbet_027.jpg)
Two 19th-century artists prepared the way for the emergence of
Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
in the 20th century: Courbet and
Cézanne. Cézanne's contributions are well-known. Courbet's importance was announced by
Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent.
Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of t ...
, poet-spokesperson for the Cubists. Writing in ''
Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques'' (1913) he declared, "Courbet is the father of the new painters."
[Guillaume Apollinaire, ''Les Peintres Cubistes (The Cubist Painters)'', 1913](_blank)
, (translated and analyzed by Peter F. Read, University of California Press, 25 October 2004, pp. 27, 137 Jean Metzinger
Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...
and
Albert Gleizes
Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
often portrayed Courbet as the father of all modern art.
Both artists sought to transcend the conventional methods of rendering nature; Cézanne through a
dialectical
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
method revealing the process of seeing, Courbet by his materialism. The Cubists would combine these two approaches in developing a revolution in art.
On a formal level, Courbet wished to convey the physical characteristics of what he was painting: its density, weight, and texture. Art critic
John Berger
John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...
said: "No painter before Courbet was ever able to emphasize so uncompromisingly the density and weight of what he was painting." This emphasis on material reality endowed his subjects with dignity. Berger observed that the Cubist painters "were at great pains to establish the physical presence of what they were representing. And in this, they are the heirs of Courbet."
Nazi-looted art
During the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
(1933-1945) Jewish art collectors throughout Europe had their property seized as part of the
Holocaust. Many artworks created by Courbet were looted by Nazis and their agents during this period and have only recently been reclaimed by the families of the previous owners.
Courbet's ''La Falaise d'Etretat'' was owned by the Jewish collector Marc Wolfson and his wife Erna, who both were murdered in
Auschwitz. After disappearing during the
Nazi Occupation of France
The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...
, it reappeared years later at the
musée d'Orsay
The great Hungarian Jewish collector
Baron Mor Lipot Herzog owned several Courbet artworks, including ''Le Chateau de Blonay (Neige)'' (circa 1875, "The Chateau of Blonay (Snow)", now at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts), and Courbet's most infamous work — ''
L'Origine du monde
("The Origin of the World") is a picture painted in oil on canvas by the French artist Gustave Courbet in 1866. It is a close-up view of the vulva and abdomen of a naked woman, lying on a bed with legs spread.
History Identity of the model
Ar ...
'' ("The Origin of the World"). His
collection of 2000-2500 pieces was looted by Nazis and many are still missing.
Gustav Courbet's paintings ''Village Girl With Goat'', ''The Father'', and ''Landscape With Rocks'' were discovered in the
Gurlitt Trove of art stashed in Munich. It is not known to whom they belonged.
Josephine Weinmann and her family, who were German Jews, had owned ''Le Grand Pont'' before they were forced to flee. The Nazi militant Herbert Schaefer acquired it and loaned it to the
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
, against whom the Weinmanns filed a claim.
The French ''Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume (Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg)'' has 41 entries for Courbet.
See also
*
History of painting
The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and ...
*
Léonce Bénédite
Léonce Bénédite (14 January 1859 – 12 May 1925) was a French art historian and curator. He was a co-founder of the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français (Society for French Orienalist Painters) and was instrumental in establishing ...
*
List of Orientalist artists
This is an incomplete list of artists who have produced works on Orientalist subjects, drawn from the Islamic world or other parts of Asia. Many artists listed on this page worked in many genres, and Orientalist subjects may not have formed a m ...
*
Lost artworks
Lost artworks are original pieces of art that credible sources indicate once existed but that cannot be accounted for in museums or private collections or are known to have been destroyed deliberately or accidentally, or neglected through igno ...
*
Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
*
Western painting
The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from classical antiquity, antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with Representational art, representational ...
Notes
References
;Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
Monographs on the art and life of Courbet have been written by Estignard (Paris, 1874), D'Ideville, (Paris, 1878), Silvestre in ''Les artistes français'', (Paris, 1878),
Isham
Isham is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is on the A509 road, three miles south of Kettering and a mile to the west of Burton Latimer. The River Ise is to the east of the village. Administratively, it forms part of N ...
in Van Dyke's ''Modern French Masters'' (New York, 1896), Meier-Graefe, ''Corot and Courbet'', (Leipzig, 1905), Cazier (Paris, 1906), Riat, (Paris, 1906), Muther, (Berlin, 1906), Robin, (Paris, 1909), Benedite, (Paris, 1911) and Lazár Béla (Paris, 1911). Consult also
Muther, ''History of Modern Painting'', volume ii (London, 1896, 1907); Patoux, "Courbet" in ''Les artistes célèbres'' and ''La vérité sur Courbet'' (Paris, 1879); Le Men,
Courbet' (New York, 2008).
* Bond, Anthony, "Embodying the Real", ''Body''. The Art Gallery of New South Wales (1997).
*
Champfleury
Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (17 September 1821, in Laon, Aisne – 6 December 1889, in Sèvres), who wrote under the name Champfleury (), was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting ...
, ''Les Grandes Figures d'hier et d'aujourd'hui'' (Paris, 1861)
* Chu, Petra ten Doesschate. ''Courbet in Perspective.'' (Prentice Hall, 1977)
* Chu, Petra ten Doesschate and Gustave Courbet. ''Letters of Gustave Courbet''. (Chicago: Univ Chicago Press, 1992)
* Chu, Petra ten Doesschate. ''The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth-Century Media Culture''. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007)
*
Clark, Timothy J., ''Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the
1848 Revolution'', (
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
:
University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
, 1999); (Originally published 1973. Based on his doctoral dissertation along with ''The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848–1851''), 208pp. . (Considered the definitive treatment of Courbet's politics and painting in 1848, and a foundational text of
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
art history
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
.)
* Faunce, Sara, "Feminist in Spite of Himself", ''Body''. The Art Gallery of New South Wales (1997).
* Griffiths, Harriet & Alister Mill
Courbet's early Salon exhibition record Database of Salon Artists, 1827–1850'
* Howe, Jeffery (ed.), ''Courbet. Mapping Realism. Paintings from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and American Collections'', exhibition catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1 September – 8 December 2013
istributed by the University of Chicago Press* Hutchinson, Mark
"The history of ''The Origin of the World''" ''
Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to '' The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'', 8 August 2007.
* Lemonnier, C, ''Les Peintres de la Vie'' (Paris, 1888).
* Lindsay, Jack. ''Gustave Courbet his life and art.'' Publ. Jupiter Books (London) Limited 1977.
* Mantz, "G. Courbet," ''Gaz. des beaux-arts'' (Paris, 1878)
*
Nochlin, Linda, ''Courbet'', (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007)
* Nochlin, Linda, ''Realism: Style and Civilization'' (New York: Penguin, 1972).
* Savatier, Thierry, ''El origen del mundo. Historia de un cuadro de Gustave Courbet''. Ediciones TREA (Gijón, 2009).
* Tennant Jackson, Jenny, "Courbet's Trauerspiel: Trouble with Women in the Painter's Studio." in G. Pollock (ed.), ''Visual Politics of Psychoanalysis'', London: I.B.Tauris, 2013.
*
Zola, Émile, ''Mes Haines'' (Paris, 1879)
External links
*
Gustave Courbet papersat the
University of Maryland Libraries
Gustave Courbet, works at Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Joconde, Portail des collections des musées de FranceUnion List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Gustave Courbet.
Getty Vocabulary Program The Getty Vocabulary Program is a department within the Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California. It produces and maintains the Getty controlled vocabulary databases, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Union List of Arti ...
,
Getty Research Institute
The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". . Los Angeles, California
''The Painter's Studio (L'atelier du peintre)'', on-line, in increased reality, Musée d'Orsay* Jennifer A. Thompson, "
ttps://publications.philamuseum.org/entries/102788 ''Marine'' by Gustave Courbet (cat. 948)" in
The John G. Johnson Collection: A History and Selected Works', a Philadelphia Museum of Art free digital publication
{{DEFAULTSORT:Courbet, Gustave
1819 births
1877 deaths
19th-century French painters
French male painters
French Realist painters
French socialists
Orientalist painters
Légion d'honneur refusals
People from Doubs
People from Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District
Deaths from cirrhosis
Communards