Gustave Courbet

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

Realism

Best known as an innovator in Realism (and credited with coining the term), and a landscape and seascape painter, his scenes are not romantic or idealized as was customary style at the time. Rather, he portrayed dynamic scenery, subject to continuous and progressive change. Courbet believed the Realist artist's mission was the pursuit of truth which would help erase social contradictions and imbalances.

Related Topics:
Realism - Romantic - Realist

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For Courbet realism was not the perfection of line and form, but spontaneous and rough handling of paint, suggesting direct observation by the artist and portraying the irregularities in nature. He depicted the harshness in life, and in so doing, challenged contemporary academic ideas of art, which brought him 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.

Related Topics:
Honoré Daumier - Jean-François Millet - Realism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Born in Ornans (Doubs), into a prosperous farming family which wanted him to study law, he 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 Spanish, Flemish and French painters and painting copies of their work.

Related Topics:
Doubs - Paris - 1839

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

His first works, an Odalisque, suggested by Victor Hugo, and a Lélia, illustrating George Sand, were literary subjects; but these he soon abandoned for the study of real life.

Related Topics:
Victor Hugo - George Sand

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A trip to the Netherlands 1847 strengthened Courbet's feeling that painters should portray the life around them, as Rembrandt, Hals, and the other Dutch masters had done.

Related Topics:
1847 - Rembrandt - Hals

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Among other 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 praises of Courbet, who by 1849 was becoming well known, producing such pictures as After Dinner at Ornans (for which the Salon awarded medal) and The Valley of the Loire.

Related Topics:
The Man with a Pipe - Paris Salon - Romantics - Realists - 1849

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~