Gustave Courbet

::For the French Admiral, see Admiral Courbet (1828-1885)

Burial at Ornans

Probably Courbet's most famous work is Burial at Ornans. Courbet's painting based around what he saw at the funeral of his grand uncle became the first masterpiece in the Realist style. In September 1848 he attended the funeral of his great uncle at Ornans and later painted the huge canvas, Burial at Ornans. He used people who had been to the funeral as models for the painting, which was another way that the style was new. Previously, models were used as actors, to portray the life of other people from other times, yet here Courbet was painting the very people who had been to the event. It gives a realistic look at the townspeople of Ornans, and the people Courbet knew. They are shown in a realistic setting, giving a look into what it was like to live in Ornans. The painting caused a fuss with critics and the public. It is an enormous work, measuring 10 by 22 feet, and depicts a funeral in a town in the way in which painters might have painted a picture of a royal funeral. It was unusual to take an ordinary event and give it as much importance and dignity as would be usual to depict royalty. By creating such interest in this way of painting an ordinary scene, the public grew much more interested in this new, Realist style of work. The lavish, decadent fantasy of romanticism lost popularity, people desiring something more real and closer to home. Courbet regarded this work as not just a funeral for his uncle, but in actual fact a funeral for Romanticism as a style. As Courbet said, "the Burial at Ornans was in reality the burial of Romanticism."

Related Topics:
Realist - Funeral - Ornans - 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 Flazey. His style continued to develop uniqueness, as in Village Damsels (1852), the Wrestlers, Bathers, and A Girl Spinning (1852).

Related Topics:
1850 - 1852

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Because he associated his ideas of realism in art with socialism, when he had gained an audience he promoted democratic and socialistic ideas by writing politically motivated essays and dissertations.

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To a friend in 1850 he wrote,

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:...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.

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