Rejecting established academic traditions that prescribed certain subject matter for art, painter Gustave Courbet refused an invitation to contribute a commissioned work to the Exposition Universelle at Paris and instead set up his own exhibition, the Pavilion of Realism, to present his paintings of contemporary subjects drawn from everyday life. By this bold act, he launched the realist movement in art.
The son of a middle-class farming family of Franche-Comté, Gustave Courbet arrived in Paris in 1839 and set about teaching himself to be a painter by copying the masterpieces of the Louvre
Charles
During the 1840’s, Courbet painted many self-portraits and submitted a total of twenty-four works to the Salons between 1841 and 1847. Of these works only three were accepted. Then, in 1848, the Salon was not juried; Courbet exhibited seven paintings. In the Salon of 1849, he won a gold medal for his After Dinner at Ornans, and the government purchased the painting. In 1850, the Salon opened late because of the ongoing revolutions in Europe; the Salon continued into 1851. Courbet exhibited two enormous paintings, The Stonebreakers (1849) and Burial at Ornans (1849), for which he was severely criticized. The paintings were found offensive by both critics and the public for two reasons. First, the subject matter was deemed inappropriate, as it depicted people from the lower classes doing everyday things, and second, the people depicted were not “beautiful” but, instead, rather common and sometimes coarse, dressed in the simple clothing of the working class.
Gustave Courbet.
The enormous size of the paintings (Burial at Ornans measured ten feet, three inches by twenty-one feet, nine inches) enabled Courbet to paint life-size figures, intensifying the offensive nature of the works, which defied the rules of academic painting. The works were, however, wonderful examples of the realism on which Courbet insisted. The paintings contained no elevated scenes or noble themes. Courbet had recorded on canvas what he had observed. His inspiration for The Stonebreakers actually had derived from his encounter with two men working along a road. Burial at Ornans depicted a funeral being held in his home town; he had actual townspeople pose for the painting. While Courbet received severe criticism from the traditional critics, his works were highly praised by art critics Baudelaire and Champfleury, who also sought realism in artistic expression. Champfleury, who was recognized as the leader of the realist movement in literature and was the first to use the term “realism” in the context of art criticism, hailed Burial at Ornans as a landmark in realist art.
The Stonebreakers, in particular, and Burial at Ornans were considered possible attacks upon the French government. Courbet was very much influenced by the ideas of his friend Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
As preparations were being made for the Exposition Universelle
In response to the rejections, Courbet had a pavilion constructed near the Exposition Universelle and set up his own exposition, which he called the Pavilion of Realism. He displayed forty of his paintings, including Burial at Ornans and The Painter’s Studio. The Painter’s Studio, whose full title was The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory of Seven Years of My Artistic Life, stood in striking contrast to the historical paintings of the Salon artists. The painting embodied Courbet’s criteria of the artist expressing only what he observed and experienced. In The Painter’s Studio, Courbet showed himself painting in his studio. The work also includes other people, animals, and objects important to Courbet’s artistic milieu. Baudelaire,
By 1855, Courbet had become very influential in the realist movement. Every Thursday, a group of realist artists and writers met with Courbet at the Brasserie Andler to discuss their craft. On September 2, 1855, Champfleury published his first manifesto on realism in the form of a letter to novelist George Sand, discussing Courbet and his work.
Courbet’s Pavilion of Realism established realism as an authentic, legitimate school of painting. It also declared the artist’s independence and right to engage in creative artistic endeavors without government or academic sanction. Courbet’s bold stand set a precedent for independent, private exhibitions. In 1860, Courbet, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, and Jean-François Millet set up a large-scale private exhibition. At the Paris World’s Fair
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Clark, Timothy J. Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Focuses on Courbet from 1848 to 1853. Examines Courbet’s efforts to redefine art and to connect with a popular audience. Discusses the connection between the socialist battle of the pamphlets and Courbet’s paintings. -
Fried, Michael. Courbet’s Realism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Examines Courbet’s artistic technique with a painting-by-painting discussion. -
Lehan, Richard. Realism and Naturalism: The Novel in an Age of Transition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. A comprehensive intellectual and literary history of realist and naturalist fiction. Realist painters shared the creative ideas and goals of realist and naturalist writers. -
Lehning, James R. Peasant and French: Cultural Context in Rural France During the Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Explores the class from which Courbet came and which was so often the subject of his paintings. -
Nochlin, Linda. The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth Century Art and Society. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989. Discusses Courbet’s radical realism as well as the interaction of art, society, and politics during the nineteenth century. -
Rubin, James Henry. Courbet. London: Phaidon Press, 1997. Part of the Arts & Ideas series, this is a collection of essays about Courbet’s life and art work.
Emergence of the Primitives
Barbizon School of Landscape Painting Flourishes
Delacroix Paints Liberty Leading the People
Russian Realist Movement
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Begins
Paris’s Salon des Refusés Opens
Naturalist Movement Begins
Aesthetic Movement Arises
Metropolitan Museum of Art Opens
Post-Impressionist Movement Begins
A Doll’s House Introduces Modern Realistic Drama
Rise of the Symbolist Movement
Toulouse-Lautrec Paints At the Moulin Rouge
Charles Baudelaire; Mary Cassatt; Paul Cézanne; Gustave Courbet; Eugène Delacroix; Édouard Manet; Pierre-Joseph Proudhon; Pierre-Auguste Renoir; James McNeill Whistler.