The Beginnings of Change- Courbet

So, one of the classes I am taking this last semester of school is Impressionist Art.  For those that do not know, this is the time period where Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Courbet, and many others produced their greatest works. (Van Gogh was late-post Impressionism).  One of the first artists to pave the way for the true Impressionists was an artist by the name of Gustave Courbet.  I recently wrote a short essay on his works and thought I would share it here....enjoy!


       Courbet is a significant artist within the art history timeline and canon because at a critical point in art, he was one of the first to take a stand against the accepted traditions and rules of the Ecole des Beaux Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris.  Instead, he chose to create paintings which reflected his upbringing in the provincial part of France.  He was concerned with painting life as he encountered it without any alteration to elevate or show it as something it was not.  Those who came to the School of Fine Arts for training always wanted to shed their provincial style, speech, and manners in favor of the fashionable and desirable Parisian lifestyle.  Courbet chose to actively embrace his country style and manners rather than conform and blend in with the crowd.  He wore wooden clogs, rough homespun clothes, drank beer rather than wine, and adopted a Romantic lifestyle where he viewed himself as the tragic hero standing in the face of convention and the Neo-Classicism favored by the School of Fine Arts.  His painting titled The Wounded Man done around 1845 accurately depicts his views at the time of himself as a tragic hero.  This painting is a self-portrait where the figure leans up against a tree after having been defeated in a duel.  He is bleeding from a wound near his heart although he does not appear to be overtly in distress but rather resigned to his fate as he fades away from blood loss.  This was a typically dramatic work in the Romantic style that Courbet embraced towards the beginning of his time in Paris.  However, he soon created/discovered a new movement which more accurately reflected his values and chosen subject matter.  This movement became known as Realism; a movement where life was accurately observed and depicted without attempting to elevate it.  Also, Realism was content with everyday scenes and subjects rather than historical paintings, portraits of kings and queens, etc.  

The Wounded Man, Courbet, 1845

    A prime example of this change from Romanticism to Realism is his painting called The Stonebreakers done around 1849.  In this painting we have a horribly poor man and his son hard at work creating the rubble to be used for roads.  Although their posture and clothing indicate a kind of hopelessness that their situation in life will never change, the father still has pride in his profession as he swings his hammer with a precision born out of years of practice.  The father also retains a wad of tobacco which he freely shares with any passersby.  This unexpected gallantry and generosity is at odds with his situation in life and brings out an area of interest for the piece.  Courbet was fascinated with the mundane of life and painting those who were not deemed worthy subjects by the establishment.

The Stonebreakers, Courbet, 1849

    Perhaps his most famous painting where he flaunted all conventions held by the School of Fine Arts was in his painting titled Burial at Ornans done around 1849-1850.  This painting is of a burial scene near his hometown.  It is not unheard of to paint burial scenes, such as those of monarchs and heads of state, but what Courbet did was create a painting of an unknown everyday burial on a canvas that was usually reserved for the great history paintings like those depicting a famous battle or a scene from Classical Antiquity.  By using such a large canvas for a seemingly unimportant event, Courbet was in essence throwing the hierarchy of genres instituted by the School of Fine Arts out of the window and stating that as an artist; he would decide what was an important even to depict and what was not.  Burial also was a slap in the face to the clergy as his depiction of them within the painting was not flattering at all.  Courbet depicted the figures (clergy included) as having divided attention and not focusing or caring for the departed in any real way.  They are there for appearance’s sake and will go back to their everyday lives without a thought or backward glance once the service has been completed (hopefully swiftly).  Courbet was in essence “calling out” society and the clergy on their false piety and the facade they present to the world.  He wanted people to drop the masks and live as purely and simply as the country folk he depicted.  The final “mark” against this painting by Courbet as far as the Academy and Salon were concerned was the fact that he painted the entire piece with a palette knife rather than traditional brushes.  A palette knife was viewed as merely a tool for mixing paints together; not for composing a piece.

A Burial at Ornans, Courbet, 1849-50

    All these aspects of Courbet’s work and style combined to alienate him from the more traditional among the art world of Paris.  However, his works blazed a trail and allowed artists such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Caillbotte and others to forge their own paths and bring about an even more radical art movement known as Impressionism.