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5. Courbet
Kenneth G. Hay
Professor Emeritus of Contemporary
Art Practice, The University of Leeds,
UK
1“Despair”, Oil on Canvas, 45 x 54 cm (1841), Private Coll.
2“Self Portrait with a Black Dog” (1842), oil on canvas 46 x 56 cm, Petit Palais, Paris
3
“Juliette Courbet” (1844), 78 x 62 cm Petit Palais, Paris
Rejected by the Salon of
1845 where it was
presented with title
“Baroness de M”, it was
exhibited at the artist’s
first retrospective in
Paris, 1882.
4
“Man with Leather Belt” (c.1845)
• The work straddles two
worlds..The pose and hands and
forearm, and the facial expression
are unmistakenly 19th-century.
The attributes of the artists:
portfolio, book of prints, cast and
chalk in its holder are managed
deftly, but the colour sense is
clear and dramatic - the crisp cuff
against a black tunic is
reminiscent of Titian, Giorgione
and the Venetian Renaissance.
• Courbet is looking back to classic
art and imbuing it with a 19thcentury
Romantic sentiment.
5
Courbet,”Man with a Pipe”(c.1846-47)
• When the critics saw it in 1851 they called it
with some justification, “An imitation of
Guercino” - It has the same casual
handling, the same clear oval face marked
with deep shadow round the eyes. But it is
typical of Courbet that the painting should
have another source in : Adriaen Brouwer’s
self portrait as a “Smoker” (below)
Courbet journeyed to
Holland in 1847 to
study the Rembrandts
and other Dutch
Masters, and returned
particularly
impressed with Frans
Hals. The Dutch
school shared his
celebration of
everyday pleasures
and fresh direct
handling
6
“Portrait of Baudelaire” (1876) oil on canvas 53 x 61 cm, Montpellier, Musée Fabre:
7
“La Dormeuse” (1849)
Oil on canvas, 65 x 53 cm,
Paris, private coll
• Unsigned and dated, but
Toussaint (1969) has identified
it as exhibited at the 1849
private exhibition of the artist’s
works.(1869).
• Reflects the influence of
Rembrandt’s work, seen in
Holland in 1847. Sold in 1881,
it was bought by Juliette
Courbet and later by Matisse.
8
“After Dinner at Ornans” (1849), Lille, Musée des Beaux Arts 195 x 257 cm
9
Louis Le Nain, “Peasant’s Lunch” (1642) Paris, Louvre
10
Timothy J.Clark
• “Image of the People:
• Gustave Courbet and the
1848 Revolution.”
• (London, 1973)
• Landmark in the social
history of art.
• Explores the
interrelatinships of
painting, politics and
publics.
11
Pierre Jean David D’Angers (1840)
“Portrait of Louis AugusteBlanqui”
• A police spy sat next to Courbet in the
pub one day in 1873 and reported back
on his beer-drinking, garrulous,
impatient, eloquent political demeanour:
He had, he noted: ‘the air of a jeering
peasant.’
• Clourbet himself observed: “Behind
this laughing mask of mine which you
know, I conceal grief and bitterness, and
a sadness which clings to my heart like
a vampire. In the society I which we
live, it doesn’t take much effort to reach
the void” (letter to Alfred Bruyas, Nov.
1854).
Blanqui was a leading revolutionary
figure in the 1840s whom Courbet much
admired. His brother Adolphe was a
conservative economist and observer of
peasant life and the ascension of peasant
power in the Assembly.
12
G. Courbet, “The Brasserie Andler”(1848)
13“The Stonebreakers” (1849, destroyed 1945), 159 x 169 cm, formerly Gemälde Galerie, Dresden.
14
Henry Wallis, “The Stonebreaker”, (1857), 65 x 79 cm. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
15
“Farm Labourers”, Jean François Millet (1814-75)
16
Les Bêcheurs (The Diggers). 1855-56. Etching. 9 1/4 x 14 (sheet 12 3/8 x 15 7/8)
17
“A Burial at Ornans”, (1849) Oil on Canvas, 314 x 665 cm, Paris, Louvre
18
• 1849, Courbet’s first monumental painting.
his "statement of principle" and made this clear
by calling the work “Painting of Human Figures,
the History of a Burial at Ornans”.
• Inspired by group portraits of Dutch civic guards
in the 17th century
• The rigorous frieze-like composition and the
gaping grave strewn with bones invite us to think
about the human condition.
• The scale of the canvas was usually reserved for
History Painting, a "noble" genre, and here he
has used it to present an ordinary subject, with no
trace of idealisation, and which cannot pretend to
be a genre scene either.
• At the Salon in 1850-1851, many people decried
"the ugliness" of the people, and the ordinariness
of the whole scene. Yet it is the idea of
"universal understanding" which prevails, a
constant preoccupation in the 19th century and
for the 1848 generation in particular.
19
“Peasants of Flagey returning from the Fair”, (1850-51),206 x 275.5 cm Beasançon, Musée des Beaux Arts
20“Bathers”, (1853), oil on canvas 227 x 197 cm. Montpellier, Musée Fabre
Bought by Alfred Bruyas
together with the Sleeping
Spinner” entered for the
Salon at the same time
(1853) and subsequently
donated to the State.
21
“The Sleeping Spinner”, (1853), Oil on Canvas, 91 x 115 cm, Montpellier, Musée Fabre
22“Wounded Man” (1844--47), 81.5 x 97.5 cm, Paris, Louvre.
23“Bonjour M. Courbet!” (1854)
24
The Wandering Jew
• Linda Nochlin:,
“Gustave Courbet's
Meeting:A Portrait of
the Artist as a
Wandering Jew”
• (Art Bulletin, Vol. 49
No 3)
25
“The Artist’s Studio: A True Allegory summarizing a Period of Seven years in my life as an artist”
(1854-55), Oil on Canvas, 361 x 598 cm, Paris Louvre, Rejected at the Universal Salon of
1855
26
Courbet, “The Young Women from the Village” (1851), 54 x 66 cmLeeds City Art Gallery
27“Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine” (1857), 174 x 200 cm, Petit Palais Paris
28“J.P.Prudhon and his Family”,(1865), 147 x 198 cm. Paris, Musée du Petit Palais
29
• Courbet presented this portrait of Proudhon at
the Salon of 1865, an homage not only to the
renowned anarco-socialist political theorist but
also to a friend who had just died. Both men
came from the French region of Franche-Comté
and both shared the same political outlook.
Courbet, an ardent republican, had been derided
since 1850 for his kitchen-sink themes.
• His critical realism, for which he was the premier
exponent, had brought him severe criticism – his
subjects were working class and his manner was
decried as «ugly, dirty and vulgar».
• Prudhon's last work, “Du principe de l'art et de sa
destination social”e (On the principal of art and
its social application), published posthumously,
was similarly critical of Second Empire society
and furthermore made direct reference to the
painter.
“J.P.Prudhon and his Family”,(detail)
30
Honoré Daumier,
• Between 1830 and 1871 there were a
series of revolutions and counterrevolutions
in France. After the
Revolution of 1789, Napoleon I came
to power and declared himself
Emperor in 1804. His First Empire
was succeeded by the Restoration of
the Bourbon Monarchy of Louis XVII
(1815) which gave way to the Second
Republic in 1848. This immediately
(1848) then gave way to the Second
Empire of Napoleon III, and then in
1870, to “The Commune”(MarchMay
1871).
• Daumier here depicts the peasantry,
now in the guise of Classical Rome,
surveying their new Estate.
31Courbet, “Frontispiece for Le Salut Public (Public Health) No.2, (1848)”
32
The “June Days”(1848)
• The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 reanimated
the Revolutionary ambitions of the first French
Revolution (1789).
• The 1848 Revolution (February) ended the
Orleans Monarchy of King Louis Philippe
(1830-48) and led to the Second Republic.
• In June 1848, unhappy about the conservative
trend of the Second Republic’s elected
government, a second, bloody but unsuccessful,
rebellion by Parisian workers occurred (The
June Days Uprising).
• On 2 December 1848, Louis Napoléon
Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon I) was elected
President of the Second Republic, largely with
peasant support. Three years later, he suspended
the elected assembly and established the Second
Empire, as Napoléon III, (the last de-facto
Monarch of France) which lasted until 1870.
Messonnier, “The Barricades” watercolour (1848)
33
“The city of Paris has a great mast, made entirely of
bronze, with sculpted Victories and Napoleon as its
lookout”. ( Balzac’)
The Vendôme column designed by Lepère and
Gondoin and made from melting down 1200
artillery pieces taken from the Russians and
Austrians. It comprises a stone core enrobed with
425 bronze plaques amounting to a 280 metre-long
frieze of bas-reliefs, form the Napoleonic
campaigns designed from drawings by Bergeret,
and executed by a team of sculptors (including
Boizot, Bosio, Bartolini, Ramey, Rude, Corbet,
Clodion and Ruxthiel)
Forty-two metres tall, the column was crowned
with a statue of The Emperor in Roman dress. The
statue was taken down by the Allies in 1814 and
replaced during the Restoration by a flag bearing
fleurs de lys.
Under the July Monarchy this was replaced with a
statue showing Napoleon as 'Little Corporal'.
Dismantled during the Commune at the instigation
of Gustave Courbet, the Vendôme column was
restored and re-erected once more in 1873 at
Courbet's expense. It was rthe casue of his
imprisonmnet, bankruptcy and exile.
34
Place Vendôme, Paris, with collapsed column, 1871
35
“The Trout”, (1871). Paris private collection, 65 x 99cm
36
“Courbet in Sainte-Pélagie”, Ornans,
civic Collection 92 x 72.5 cm
(1871) Neither signed nor dated.
Given by Juliette Courbet to the Town
of Ornans in 1903. First mentioned by
Estingnard in 1897.
This is Courbet’s last self-portrait. He
had stopped painting self-portraits for
the previous 15 years, but painted this
one in prison as a record of his fate.
Courbet was sentenced to six months
in prison for his part in the destruction
of the Vendôme Column in 1871. His
last few months of confinement were
in the Hospital in Neuilly.
37
“The Calf” (1873), 88 x 116 cm. Paris, Coll. L. Bénatov
38
“The Château at Chillon”(1875), 62 x 69, Lons-le Saunier Museum