''Le ruisseau noir (The Black Stream)'' (also known in En. as ''Stream in a Ravine'') is an oil-on-canvas landscape painted by French artist,

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...

, in 1865. It is currently held and exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

History

This picture was included in the Exposition Universelle of 1867, and was bought from the artist in the same year by the Comte de Nieuwerkerque, Director of Museums, for

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 ...

, at the price of 2000 French francs. It was part of the Emperor's personal property, and was allotted to 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 ...

by the

Tribunal A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a single ...

de la Seine, along with other paintings, on 12 February 1879. In 1881, it was exhibited in the

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

, with the title ''Le puits noir (The Black Ravine)'', which is really the name of another work painted in 1869. The landscape is currently housed and exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay in

, and represents a gorge, a ravine through which runs a winding stream, its bed littered with rocks, between steep walls covered with wild vegetation. The stream depicted is the

Loue The Loue () is a river of eastern France, a left tributary of the Doubs, which it joins downstream of Dole. It is long. Its source is a karst spring in the Jura mountains near Ouhans, which at least partly receives its water from the Doubs. Th ...

, a capricious creek flowing through the village of

Ornans Ornans () is a commune in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. On January 1, 2016, the former commune Bonnevaux-le-Prieuré was merged into Ornans.palette knife A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for applying paint to the canvas, mixing paint colors, adding texture to the painted surface, paste, etc., or for marbling, decora ...

. Courbet crushes his pigments and spreads them diagonally with his knife, thus letting underlying wads of paint show through: this creates the effect of transparency and depth as rich as those obtained by means of glazes in the work of earlier artists. His splendid greens evoke the luxuriance of a semi-aquatic world where vegetation runs riot.See J. Lindsay, ''Gustave Courbet his life and art'', Jupiter Books (1977); F. Masanès, ''Gustave Courbet: Unsentimental Realism'',

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Taschen Comics, ...

(2006).

References

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). * Lindsay, Jack. ''Gustave Courbet his life and art.'' Publ. Jupiter Books (London) Limited 1977. * Lemonnier, C, ''Les Peintres de la Vie'' (Paris, 1888). * Mantz, "G. Courbet," ''Gaz. des beaux-arts'' (Paris, 1878). * Masanès, Fabrice, ''Gustave Courbet: Unsentimental Realism'' (Cologne: Taschen, 2006) * Nochlin, Linda, ''Courbet'', (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007) * Nochlin, Linda, ''Realism: Style and Civilization'' (New York: Penguin, 1972)

Notes

External links

''Le ruisseau noir'' at the Musée d'Orsay

Gallery of paintings by Gustave Courbet

Art Renewal Center; biography and images
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruisseau noir, Le 1865 paintings Paintings by Gustave Courbet Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay Rivers in art