Gustave Courbet
- For the French Admiral, see Admiral Courbet (1828-1885)
| Gustave Courbet | |
 Gustave Courbet (portrait by Nadar). | |
| Birth name | Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet |
| Born | 1819-06-10 Ornans, France |
| Died | 1877-12-31 La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland |
| Nationality | French |
| Field | Painting, Sculpting |
| Training | Antoine-Jean Gros |
| Movement | Realism |
| Famous works | Burial at Ornans (1849-1850) L'Origine du monde (1866) |
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) made a living painting the varied scenes everyday life in France. The very nature of his subject matter established his reputation as one of the leading artists of mid-19th century Realism.
From Courbet's early days as a painter, he was recognized. Whether his art shocked or intrigued the viewer, the public was paying attention to France's latest talent. It is unusually to create masterpieces at the beginning of a career, but in 1849 and 1850 Courbet produced two paintings that are critically acclaimed as his best work. They are The Stone-Breakers and Burial at Ornans. With these paintings, Courbet secured a reputation for being different from the popular paintings completed in the Neoclassic and Romantic genres. His paintings exhibited less controlled brush strokes and more fluidity of movement.
Courbet wasn't only a painter, he was a political painter. This means that he used his realistic paintings of peasants to promote his socialist view of the world. His political beliefs were influenced greatly by the life and teachings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. While socializing in various artistic and literary circles in Paris Courbet made several friends, including Charles Baudelaire and Champfleury.
Early Life
Gustave Courbet was born in the city of Ornans on June 10, 1819. Courbet grew up under the influence of his temperamental father, a prominent landowner of the region. Courbet seems to have had no qualms about stating his opinion and showing disregard for those who did not agree with him. The boy often saw many scenes of peasantry and local life in the Franche-Comté region in which he grew up. When Courbet turned 18, he left home to pursue an education at the Collège Royal at Besançon. Although he didn't plan on becoming a painter by profession, he pursued his interest in it though study.
At the Collège Royal, the techniques and methods used came under Courbet's testy scrutiny. He disliked the classical and formalistic methods and subjects the college focused on. In fact, he became so convincing in his argument against the college, that he found students to join his ranks and he led a revolt.
While studying at the college, Courbet made friends with the aspiring writer, Max Buchon. When Buchon's Essais Poétiques (1839) were being published, he commissioned Courbet to illustrate it. Courbet obliged by creating four beautiful lithographs for the work. Also during his studies, he enrolled as an externe, thus he could not only attend classes at the college, but he was also able to take classes from Charles Flajoulot at the école des Beaux-Arts.
Following the education he received, Courbet left the college and moved to Paris in 1840. Here he decided to begin an intense study of the law, however he quickly changed his mind and realize that his true life's calling led him to painting. He spent hours upon hours copying various paintings in the Louvre. His first major breakthrough happened in 1844 with his painting, Self-Portrait with Black Dog. His painting was selected for a showing at the Salon.
The next year Courbet upped his submissions with five paintings, however, only one was selected, it was Le Guitarrero. The year after this, all of his paintings were rejected. But in 1848, the Liberal Jury eased his anger, recognized his talent, and took all 10 of his entries. The harsh critic Champfleury apologized profusely to Courbet, praised his paintings, and began a friendship.
Realism
Gustave Courbet is often given credit for coining the term Realism. He was innovative in the movements creation, his art fed its rapid growth, and several other artists were soon dubbing themselves "realists".
Courbet's landscapes and seascapes were know for their figurative compositions. His art taversed the topics of peasant life, poor working conditions, and abject poverty.
Best known as an innovator in Realism (and credited with coining the term), Courbet was a painter of figurative compositions, landscapes and seascapes. He also worked with social issues, and addressed peasantry and the grave working conditions of the poor. His work belonged neither to the predominant Romantic nor Neoclassical schools. Rather, Courbet believed the Realist artist's mission was the pursuit of truth, which would help erase social contradictions and imbalances.
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. He depicted the harshness in life, and in so doing, challenged contemporary academic ideas of art, which brought the criticism that he deliberately adopted a cult of ugliness.
His work, along with the works of Honoré Daumier and Jean-François Millet, became known as Realism.
His first works were an Odalisque, suggested by the writing of Victor Hugo, and a Lélia, illustrating George Sand, but he soon abandoned literary influences for the study of real life.
A trip to the Netherlands in 1847 strengthened Courbet's belief that painters should portray the life around them, as Rembrandt, Hals, and the other Dutch masters had done.
Among his early works, he painted his own portrait with his dog, and The Man with a Pipe, both of which the Paris Salon jury rejected. However, the younger critics, the Neo-romantics and Realists, loudly sang his praises, and by 1849 Courbet was becoming well known, producing such pictures as After Dinner at Ornans (for which the Salon awarded him a medal) and The Valley of the Loire.
Burial at Ornans
One of Courbet's most important works is Burial at Ornans, a canvas recording an event which he witnessed in September 1848. Courbet's painting of the funeral of his grand uncle became the first masterpiece in the Realist style. People who had attended the funeral were used as models for the painting. Previously, models had been used as actors in historical narratives; here Courbet said that he "painted the very people who had been present at the interment, all the townspeople". The result is a realistic presentation of them, and of life, in Ornans. The painting caused a fuss with critics and the public. It is an enormous work, measuring 10 by 22 feet (3.1 by 6.6 meters), depicting a prosaic ritual on a scale which previously would have been reserved for a religious or royal subject. Eventually the public grew more interested in the new Realist approach, and the lavish, decadent fantasy of Romanticism lost popularity. The artist well understood the importance of this painting; as Courbet said: "The Burial at Ornans was in reality the burial of Romanticism."
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The Salon of 1850 found him triumphant with the Burial at Ornans, the Stone-Breakers (destroyed in 1945), and the Peasants of Flagey. Other figurative works, with common folk and friends as his subjects, included Village Damsels (1852), the Wrestlers, Bathers, and A Girl Spinning (1852).
Courbet associated his ideas of realism in art with Socialism, and, having gained an audience, he promoted democratic and Socialist ideas by writing politically motivated essays and dissertations.
To a friend in 1850 he wrote,
| “ | ...in our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies, I must address myself to them directly.[1] | ” |
He displayed his monumental The Artist's Studio in 1855. It is an allegory of his life as a painter, seen as a heroic venture, in which he is surrounded by friends and admirers, among them Charles Baudelaire.
Notoriety
Towards the end of the 1860s, Courbet painted a series of increasingly erotic works, culminating in The Origin of the World (L'Origine du monde) (1866), depicting female genitalia, and The Sleepers (1866), featuring two women in bed. While banned from public display, the works only served to increase his notoriety.
On 14 April 1870, Courbet established a "Federation of Artists" (Fédération des artistes) for the free and uncensored expansion of art. The group's members included André Gill, Honoré Daumier, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Eugène Pottier, Jules Dalou, and Édouard Manet.
His refusal of the cross of the Legion of Honour offered to him by Napoleon III made him immensely popular with those who opposed the current regime, and in 1871 under the revolutionary Paris Commune he was placed in charge of all the Paris art museums and saved them from looting mobs. For his insistence in executing the Communal decree for the destruction of the Vendôme Column, he was designated as responsible for the act and accordingly sentenced on 2 September 1871 by a Versailles court martial to six months in prison and a fine of 500 francs.
In 1873, the newly elected president Mac-Mahon wanted to resurrect the Column, and Courbet was singled out to pay the expenses. He then took refuge in Switzerland to avoid bankruptcy. On 4 May 1877, the estimate of the costs was finally established: 323.091 fr 68 cent. Courbet was allowed to pay the fine in yearly installments of 10,000 francs for the next 33 years, until his 91st birthday.
Courbet died, age 58, in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, of a liver disease aggravated by heavy drinking on 31 December 1877, a day before the payment of the first installment was due. (Bernard Noël, 1978) An exhibition of his works was held in 1882 at the École des Beaux-Arts.
Legacy
Courbet's influence is widespread, breaking the mold of established convention in many ways, allowing others to follow in his footsteps, most notably the Impressionists and in particular Manet who, rather than Courbet is considered the father of Impressionism.[2]
Courbet is represented in galleries throughout France and the United States. The Metropolitan Museum has more than 20 of his works.
Gallery
Poor Woman of the Village.
Die Berghütte.
The Hammock. (1844).
Self portrait at about age 30.
Self portrait with black dog. (1842).
Bauern von Flagey bei der Rückkehr vom Markt (1850)
Portrait of Baudelaire (1848).
Ringkämpfer (1853).
- Frauen beim Getreidesieben.jpg
The Grain Sifters (1854).
Les Demoiselles des bords de la Seine (1856)
Pferd im Walde (1863).
Rehbock im Wald (1867).
Meeresküste in der Normandie (1867).
Die Wellen (1869).
The Cliffs of Étretat After the Storm.
Äpfel und Granatäpfel (1871).
_-_Poor_Woman_of_the_Village.jpg)
Notes
- ↑ Courbet, Gustave: artchive.com citing Perl, Jed: Gallery Going: Four Seasons in the Art World, 1991, Harcourt, ISBN 978-0151342600.
- ↑ Gustave Courbet and Realism Redflag.org.uk. Retrieved November 28, 2007.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Nochlin, Linda, Courbet, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007 ISBN 978-0-500-28676-0)
- Champfleury, Les Grandes Figures d’hier et d’aujourd’hui (Paris, 1861)
- Mantz, "G. Courbet," Gaz. des beaux-arts (Paris, 1878)
- Zola, Émile, Mes Haines (Paris, 1879)
- Lemonnier, C, Les Peintres de la Vie (Paris, 1888).
- Noël, Bernard, Dictionnaire de la Commune (Paris: Champs Flammarion, 1978)
- Nochlin, Linda, Realism: Style and Civilization (New York: Penguin, 1972).
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
External links
- General
- Courbet images and biography at CGFA
- Artchive on Courbet
- Humanities Web on Courbet
- Art Renewal Center; biography and images
- Articles and essays
- "The history of 'The Origin of the World'": an article in the TLS by Mark Hutchinson, August 8th 2007
- Courbet’s Low Tide at Trouville in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
- E-zine article on Gustave Courbet
- 1867 Caricature of Gustave Courbet by André Gill
- smARThistory: Young Women from the Village
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