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.
5 comments:
Again, as in my comments reference Titian, we see the female body white and pure, nude and erotic, soft and enticing in these dark environments. They are all full bodies human figures invoking it would seem, some specific audience responses. During the Romantic, and yet puritanical times, it is interesting to be to see so many nudes.
In the 1830's, early daguerrertype photographs were showing the potential of capturing scenes via this technique and not just painting from memory or models.
Many artists of the time predicted that photography would be the death of painting. Courbet and Delacroix picked up on the medium as a means of having memories of the scenes they were painting without using the real life models etc. It was quicker to get some large paintings done as in the salon scene with the nude lady, perhaps. This use of the camera was more popular as the years went on, in the 1850's. Certainly it did not cause the death of painting. selene
Although I do not find Courbet’s style of painting the most interesting, I find his subject matter quite intriguing and ahead of his time. Courbet was among the first painters to depict everyday scenes in their works. The Stonebreakers was a massive painting that depicted two men breaking stones. However common this task was, things in an everyday nature had not been used as subject matter. Coubet’s use of these men and other everyday scenes changed the way art was viewed. Moreover, Courbet painted erotic nudes as well. These were the most controversial pieces that were painted around that time. Courbet’s The Origin of the World (1866), depicting female genitalia and was viewed as vulgar and quickly removed from exhibition. I believe Courbet was one of the first people to challenge the norms of the painting world and see how far he could bend the ideas of art. I see Courbet as painting the way for artists such as Duchamp and Picasso, by displaying his work anyway and pushing the boundaries.
I think Lauren makes a really great point about Courbet being one of the first artists to challenge the norms of painting and paving the way for future artists -- i think this makes us as viewers evaluate the historical conventions of painting to see why he was such a groundbreaking artist. Similar to Gericault, Courbet's choice of subject defies the conventions of the time. He chose to paint everyday working class people instead of royalty or the upper class -- by doing this he not only challenges painting norms but also forces the viewer to reflect upon society as a whole and the value of every person and thier contribution to the workings of society. I think power dynamics is a very interesting lens in which to view Courbet's work especially looking at his depiction of the female form -- "The Origin of the World" communicates the issues of gender and power in a way that i think havent been seen before -- on the one hand female power is reduced to the biological organ that produces life yet the fact that Courbet paints it at all and calls it the origin of the world is groundbreaking for the time and asserts power to women.
I think the Courbet's The Origin of the World is also an example of how important a title is to a painting. In this instance Courbet has re-contextualized an image that is widely considered vulgar--as exemplified in its removal from the salon--and forced the viewer to consider the actual function of this female body part. Courbet has taken a symbol that even today is seen as pornographic and obscene and socially legitimized it, both as an artwork and as a physical entity, simply by titling it in the manner he did.
I am not sure what to write about these works of art, so I will first respond to the comments previosuly written in hope that I will find something new by pondering the words of others.
I am first just curious about the personality or reasons that Courbet had behind painting the nude figure. It seems that he painted the female nude figure and himself in ways that appear to be almost fantasy like. In his painting, The Wounded, the wounded looks a lot like Courbet, and am decently confident enough to assume that sources have drawn the same conclusion. It appears that the painting almost ask the question...what would I look like dying, wounded, bleeding... The rebellious attitude mentioned in Courbet's work appears to be somewhat a statement, but also a bit of his own personality and curiousity at wondering...what would "such and such" look like and what would it mean if I were to do this? I feel that this attitude may have been a result to his art education, which appeared to allow him to develop his own personal style and independantly decided on what he wanted to create.
I mention this because I do not feel that he painted the female nude to simply convey an innocent painting of a female in the nude. Each of his nude paintings appear to have a certain emotion or purpose, and the title plays an important role to the possible specified emotion or purpose conveyed in each painting.
For example, in the painting the Bathers (this is less an example, rather than an investigation of a painting) , I have no explanation to explain the nude females' physical gesture. In our current society, the gesture implies possible warning, or to stop, maybe a leader; generally it implies power/a communicative device...to me... in the painting it almost appears as if her hand is pushing againts the forest background and making the beautiful scenery appear like a paper set up. The stiff poses of the females make it look as if they are being watched, and the more I look at the picture, the more the poses, lacking of distinct facial emotion, ambigous meaning/but strong gesture of the nude female...the more it appears to be a scene-a traditional painting that makes the viewer wonder about the women, rather than glaze over thier bodies as simple nudes.
It almost appears as if the woman in the clothing admires the body of the female to appears to have just come from her bath. Perhaps, the unclothed woman is gently or modestly telling the other woman not to look at her body in such a way. In this case, the painting could be Courbet wondering if woman ever look at one another while they are bathe, wondering about female relationships, in general maybe this work just exhibits Courbet's interest in the female mind...maybe his paintings silently give a voice to the nude body, give a mind to a nude image people had or have become accustomed to accepting and dismissing.
In the painting, The Sleepers the woman appear to be sexually involved with one another and within the midst of a moment. The idea of capturing a moment or an emotions seems to be able to applied to a large number of paintings of Courbet's, wether they be nude, genre, or self potrait. In this work the idea of the gaze is interesting because the viewer is entirely rejected because the two figures are completely involved with one another. In one sense, this outlook is somewhat empowering to women because the male gaze is not only irrelevant to the women in the potrait...the male figure is completley without use in a scene of sexual pleasure. Even if this painting is the mind of Courbet wondering what and how to depict a moment of upmost intimacy and possible love (is it is questionable to know if this picture is portraying love or lust), it still forces the viewer to look at two individual female bodies and wonder if they are in love, how they came to such a position (the pearls on the bed tell of events that they may have occured prior to thier sexual intimacy), if thier intamacy was planned....essentially it allows the frequently painted nude to have a voice, a story, depth,allure...the title, The Sleepers implies that they are sleeping together, but that it is not something that is known to others. Regardless, just as in, The Bathers, Courbet again paints nude females but in a way that does not allow thier bodies to be objectified, inferior/dependant, or banal to the viewer.
In, Woman with A Parrott, it appears apparent that the painting is indeed about the woman and her relationship/reactions to the parrot, so much so that her nude body appears to be less important to the painting and it is a wonder if she had a white slip or other clothing, would it affect the painting? I feel that the nude body is used a bit carelessesly in the painting, as I feel this type of work can only be produced because the nude female body IS used so often. If this painting were of a nude male with a parrot, laughing and relaxed...it would be far more criticized, perhaps less accepted then, but even more famous to art historians today. Despite this observation, it is a fact that Coubet did use a female nude figure, and I would like to ponder a couple of reasons as to why he did this. I first, would like to think that he did this because the nude body is a person's natural skin, thiier natural clothing...the bird could represent "nature" in a very general sense and because this girl is with the parrot, perhaps her nude body is simply more fitting with the scene. It also seems that this woman has nothing to hide, no reservations or discomfort about her body. In fact, because it appears as if she could be wearing clothes I would argue that again Courbet shows a female nude, but in a way that is still arguably empowering to the female. Her demeanour is confident, comfortable, effortless and without attention to the viewer, her attention is on the bird and her happiness appears to be unforced and the picutre is not forcefully sexual, or provacative, or attempting to be evocative in her body positioning. In keeping with the idea of Courbet creating moments and emotions, this painting, similar to the chemistry betwen the women in the last painting, capture an intangible communication between the woman's faint smile and the head direction of the bird.
The painting, Origin of the World, is vey exploitive of the female boy, but the title, at least to me, entirely makes the word 'exploit' and innappropiate term to use with this particular work. Courbet makes the general statment and loud point, that this is where the creation of all living things (at least human/but in general the female often holds the young and takes care of the young) occur. The female body, especially in this time has never been so "exploited", but it also had never been so revered. In fact, previous nudes and other nudes done by other artists that appear less offensive, more traditional and modest are more exploitve than this painting. This work asks people to consider something about women, and their power and place in society through the unignorable, magnified painting of that women are most to keep hidden, almost carry with shame or unnecessary modesty. Traditional works allow the female human body to be viewed without thought, and therefore without respect, their bodies become sexual symbols, and picturesque expextations of gentle, modest, obdient attiutdes. Again, I feel this paitning is a direct result of Courbet's wonder, in cohesion with what appears to be his possible desire to discontinue the objective and impartial use of the female nude in art.
His works, Allegory, Ornans The Sleeping Spinner, and Stonebreakers all appear to have a social agenda. In particular, Allegory, which the title alone assumes that the viewer needs to think twice about the painting/as well as be immediately aware that the painting is attemtping to show something that is bigger than itself, demonstrates an immediate ability to represent an opinion of Courbet on his own society. Additionaly, after having studied this painting in history class, I learned that this painting is reflective of economic class and how he has come to percieve the two different economic classes throuhgout his career as a painter. His choice to reveal economic class in a painting and himself imbetween them appear to ask us to consider the relationship (why the relationships are the way they are) between art, money, class, and questioning why certain subjects are the repeated subjects of paintings (specifically because of the nude female in the painting).
In cohesion, both genre ( I believe they are referred to as genre photos) show Courbet documenting everyday life, BUT doing so in a way that gives these everyday peoples a voice. Similar to the nude potraits, the people in his everyday potriats are completely into the task or event that is taking place. In Ornans, the viewer wonder why he paints the funeral of the death of an 'ordinary person'...but the contrasting faces/emotions and scene makes a 'common' funeral come to life, as each person is attending, but where is their mind and what is common death? ( I am assuming the painting is a funeral).
In Stonebreakers, and the Sleeping Spinner, thier faces are directed away from the viewer, and in the sleeping spinner, she is sleeping in a silent art piece...making the viewer ponder what a painted sleeping women is dreaming? and brining the silence into a rush of possible image based ideas to the viewers mind. In Stonebreakers, it is impossible to know if they are tired, if they have family, if the have friends, how long they have been out,thier age, and if a sudden event has caused them to have to break more stones, or if they are breaking stones the same way they always do....
Courbet's paintings are some of the most mind stimulating paitings during his time ( from what I know of painters in his time [which is few]) because they force the viewer to question that which has become trite to the eye...he asks himself question is his own works and seems to hope the viewer will be able to conclude some of their own as well. In doing this, Courbet successfully empowers people that seem to not often get a loud voice, or respect within his society.
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