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| Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849, (Destroyed during WW II) |
Gustave
Courbet was the father of Realism, dominant artistic movement from 1840-1870,
when Impressionism and Symbolism emerged. Artists took the events of the
day and represented them in their work. Realism and reality are not the
same, representing the sober facts taking place in contemporary life was a
reaction to Romanticism which was trying to appeal to the imagination.
Mid 19th
century western Europe was becoming increasingly industrialized, urbanized and
there was an emerging bourgeois. Courbet came from a farming family who
lived off the land. In fact his family owned property, multiple
houses and was rising into the bourgeois but still lived off the land.
Courbet went against his father's wishes that he be a lawyer and moved to
Paris to become an artist. He mostly taught himself to paint by studying the
masterpieces at the Louvre. Before 1848 only three of his paintings
were accepted in to the official Salon. His career opened with the
Revolution of 1848 and closed with the Paris Commune of 1871. He
did not seem to participate in the Revolution of 1848 but he was a part of the
Paris Commune of 1871 and was imprisoned for six months.
He
actually benefited from the revolution of 1848 because the jury for the Salon
was replaced with a group that included more contemporary artists, not just
academicians. In 1848, 10 paintings and 1849, 11 of his paintings
were exhibited at the Salon.
Gustave
Courbet felt painting should represent visible and tangible objects instead of
idealized imagery. He was interested in the present day and fate of the
lower classes, classic as well as popular imagery.
When in
1855 three of his paintings were refused by the Exposition Universelle, he
mounted his own exhibition right next door and called it "On Realism."
The idea of rejecting the Salon and setting up his own tents near the
Salon and presenting his own work is the first in avant-garde, artists who
charge ahead of the official standards, leaders.
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| Gustave Courbet, The Meeting or Bonjour M. Courbet, 1854 (Musee Fabre, Montpellier) |
Courbet
always courted notoriety and was known as 'the most arrogant man in France.' Bonjour M. Courbet is a great example of this.
In this painting he depicts himself as the wandering artist who had
no allegiances but he runs into his patron, Alfred Bruyas, the son of
a wealthy banker with his servant on the road from Ornans. The way he
depicts himself almost the same height as his patron while his feet are lower
than Bruyas' and he is almost looking down on him he seems to be saying 'you
are greeting me and I am not at your service."
There
are references in this work to the popular, cheap, epinal prints. He has
the same staff as the 'wandering Jew' from the epinal prints. The
wandering Jew mocked Christ so he was condemned to wander forever and could not
settle down. In a way he is mocking his patron like the wandering Jew
mocked Christ.
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| Gustave Courbet, The Artist's Studio: A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in My Artistic and Moral Life,1855 (Musee du Louvre) |
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The
Artist's Studio: A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and
Moral Life,1855
Goals and Characteristics of Realism
1. Verisimilitude
(truth-likeness): like Positivists and scientists of the time, painters
strove to be impartial, objective, and dependent on direct observation.
2. new notion of history and
sense of time: depiction of everyday life scenes from the present rather than
history paintings
3. moral stand: must
have sincerity and honesty in art and not idealize things but show them as
they actually are
4. preferred subject matter:
lower classes - unidealized workers and peasants
5. painting style/paint
application: coarse, unvarnished images as in Courbet's paintings (The
Stonebreakers)
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