Gustave Courbet (Jean-Desiré-Gustave Courbet) was born into a prosperous farming family on June 10, 1819, in Ornans, France, a rugged area near the Swiss border. His father was a landowner with vineyards in Flagey, a small village about eight miles from Ornans. In 1831 Courbet began attending the Seminary in Ornans and then in the fall of 1837, Courbet was sent to the Collège Royal at Besançon. Here his father had hoped that he would complete his preparatory training for a law degree. While in Besançon he also attended courses at the Académie under Charles-Antoine Flageoulot, a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David, a major neo-classical painter.
Rather than pursuing studies in law, Courbet began working in Suisse’s atelier. Unlike other ateliers there was no instruction or criticism given instead students were allowed to follow their own stylistic endeavors with an unrestrined sense of freedom. The atelier was very suitable to Courbet’s style of learning because he preferred not to work under a teacher, felt that art could not be taught. He soon left, preferring to develop his own style by studying Spanish, Flemish and French painters and painting copies of their work.
Courbet’s completed many self portraits throughout his life, but a majority of them were done in the 1840s. He submitted one of these portraits his Autoportrait au Chien (Self Portrait with the Black Dog) to the 1844 Salon, where it was accepted while his self portrait entitled Man with a Pipe and other works were rejected.
The fact that one of Courbet’s works was accepted can not be considered a triumph since. The juries at the Salon fluctuated greatly over the years. In 1841 it was very hard for even artists such as Jean-Dominique Ingres to have art accept for exhibition where as in 1844 the juried began to accept virtually every piece that was submitted.
Courbet would find that the selectiveness of the Salon jury would continually plague his establishment of a career.
In 1847 Courbet sent a portrait and two other works to the Salon but they were all rejected. For some time Courbet had experienced his share of rejections he experienced the same problem that all progressive artists of the nineteenth century faced. In order to establish their careers with the public, they needed the Salon exhibitions
Courbet ignited his first major controversy at the Salon of 1850/51, Courbet exhibited Un Enterrement a Ornans (The Burial at Ornans), Les Paysans de Flagey (The Peasants of Flagey), and Les Casseurs de Pierre (The Stonebreakers). In 1853 the controversy was rekindled when he showed Les Baigneuses (The Bathers), La Fileuse Endormie (The Sleeping Spinner), and Les Lutteurs (The Wrestlers).
It is said that Napoleon was so disgusted with The Bathers that he hit the canvas with his riding crop and that Guichard, in Les Doctrines de G. Courbet of 1862 said that “The irritation got to the point that the police commissioner of the quarter wanted to drive it out of the Exhibition.
Burial at Ornans is considered one of Courbet’s most important works. It was inspired by the actual funeral of his great uncle and became his first masterpiece in the Realist style. People who had actually attended the funeral were used as models for the painting. The result was a realistic presentation of the people, and of life, in Ornans.
The painting caused quite a fuss with critics and the public. The scale of the painting, measuring 10 by 22 feet, depicted a mundane ritual on a scale which had previously been reserved for religious or royal subjects.
Towards the end of the 1860s, Courbet painted a series of increasingly erotic pieces, such as Woman with a Parrot, The Sleepers, featuring two women in bed,
and culminated with The Origin of the World (L’Origine du monde) (1866), depicting female genitalia. While banned from public display, the works only served to increase his notoriety.
On April 14, 1870, Courbet established the “Federation of Artists" (Fédération des artistes) for the free and uncensored expansion of art. Group members included Andre Gill, Honore Daumier, Jean-Batiste Camille Corot, Eugene Pottier, Jues Dlou, and Edourad Manet.
After Courbet had made a name for himself as an artist he grew ambitious of other glory; he tried to promote democratic and social science, and under the Empire he wrote essays and dissertations. His refusal of the cross of the Legion of Honour, offered to him by Napoleon III, made him immensely popular. Despite Courbet’s refusal of the honor, the Commune government did appoint Courbet Chairman of the Arts Commission, whose sole duty was to protect the works of art in Paris from the siege. But what was to be done with monuments that represented imperialism and pillage, such as that symbolized by the hated Vendôme Column. It was decided that the column would be taken down, not by force, but by dismantlement.
The Commune was short-lived and in May of 1871 mass executions began and all Commune leaders, such as Courbet, were either executed or jailed. Courbet managed to escape by keeping a low profile; his personality was not one to flee from controversy, even if it meant going to prison.
In September a council of war, before which he was tried, condemned him to pay the cost of restoring the column, 300,000 francs (£12,000). On July 23rd, 1873 Courbet, through the assistance of a few friends, fled France for Switzerland as he could not, nor did not want to pay his fines. With the atmosphere repellent in France, Courbet stayed in Switzerland for four years, growing weaker each year, and unwilling to submit himself to continual doctor’s visits and medicines. He died, without ever returning to France, of a liver disease aggravated by heavy drinking as an exile on December 31st, 1877.
