Gustave Courbet {koor-bay'}, b. June 10, 1819,
d. Dec. 31, 1877, was the foremost realist painter (see realism, art) of mid-19th-century France.
A member of an affluent landowning family, Courbet remained close to his rural origins and frequently
returned to his birthplace, Ornans, in search of subjects.
"Proudhon and His Children"
by Gustave Courbet
Erich Lessing/
Art Resource, New York
From 1837 he studied at the Royal College in Besançon, and when sent to Paris in 1840 to study
law he defied his father's wishes and pursued a career as an artist. During the 1840s, Courbet produced
many canvases in a typically romantic style, including figures of sleeping girls and some complacent
self-portraits. In 1844 he exhibited Self-Portrait with a Black Dog (1842; Museum of the Petit
Palais, Paris) at the Paris Salon. Courbet's maturing as an artist coincided with the Revolution of
1848; in After Dinner in Ornans (1848-49; Palace of Fine Arts, Lille), exhibited at the Salon
of 1849, Courbet painted an intimate genre scene (see genre painting) on the monumental scale formerly
reserved for paintings of historical and mythological subjects.
This painting was followed rapidly by other major works, such as The Burial at Ornans
(1849-50; Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and The Stone Breakers (1850; destroyed), notable
for their large scale and volumetric solidity.
During the 1850s and '60s, Courbet was the archetypical
bohemian artist of radical political beliefs. Dissatisfied with his treatment by art juries, Courbet
took the revolutionary step of constructing pavilions to show his work at his own expense during the
world's fairs of 1855 and 1867. Although his massive The Artist's Studio (1855; Louvre, Paris)
was not well received, the popularity of his smaller landscapes, hunting scenes, still lifes, and nudes
made him financially secure in the 1860s.
"The Artist's Studio"
by Gustave Courbet
Giraudon/Art Resource, New York
Courbet's republican sympathies led to his involvement in the Paris Commune of 1871 and to his
imprisonment following the collapse of the revolutionary government. Accused of complicity in the
destruction of the Vendôme column, a Paris monument, Courbet was ordered to pay a huge fine
for its reconstruction; he fled to Switzerland in 1873.
Courbet was perhaps the first painter of genre subjects
to become the acknowledged leader of a major school. By giving everyday scenes a monumental treatment,
he helped to break down the traditional hierarchy of subject matter, giving an increased emphasis to
purely formal values in painting. His example had a great influence on the impressionists (see
impressionism) and, through them, on 20th-century art.
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