GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Complex and self-obsessed, with an idealistic to make a difference in the world, Gustave Courbet grew up in the rural village of Ornans, the son of a well-to-do landowner and farmer. Largely through the force of will and self-study, he succeeded by his 30s in becoming the leading force in the realist movement in France, a painter with strong utopian political leanings who relished provocation, and became an enduring role model for every rebellious, anti-establishment artist who followed.
This was a setting that he returned to often, painting his family and his native landscape many times. Courbet went to Paris at the age of twenty to study art and quickly developed a personal style with bold brushwork and dramatic lighting. His audacious style and politically ambiguous subject matter established his reputation as a rebel by his early thirties.
Courbet was self-proclaimed as the “proudest and most arrogant man in France,” and continually aroused scandal at the Salons with his advocacy of realism. Courbet embraced contemporary subjects and attempted to infuse a sense of realism in all of his work, including rarely captured scenes of contemporary life, hunting, and landscape, along with more traditional genres such as society portraiture. Critics denounced his works featuring rural Ornans as “ugly” attempts to depict “peasants in their Sunday best.” Elevating the rural, middle-class to the subject matter of expansive Salon paintings challenged class boundaries and upset wealthy Parisian audiences, especially in the midst of class struggles and civil uprisings against the government.
When Courbet’s The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up a Seven-Year Phase of My Artistic Life was rejected for display at the 1855 World Fair (Exposition Universelle), Courbet established his own temporary gallery (The Pavilion of Realism) and created his “Realist Manifesto” for circulation. Courbet was the first artist to create independent exhibitions that circumvented the censorship of state-sponsored venues. This act of rebellion set the stage for other artists that would follow him, such as the Impressionists in the 1870s.
Courbet played an active role in political issues throughout his life. From September 1870, Courbet had served as chairman of an Arts Commission charged with the protection of works of art during the Franco-Prussian War, and under the Commune he was appointed chairman of an Artists' Federation, from which position he agitated for the destruction of the Column as a symbol of imperialism. His role in the actual demolition is ambiguous, but he nevertheless was tried, convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment at Saint-Pelagie in the rue du Puits de l'Ermite in Paris. After his release, his sense of the unsettled political situation caused Courbet to choose voluntary exile in Switzerland, where he died in 1877.
Adapted from
- "Gustave Courbet, Fox in the Snow," DMA Connect, Dallas Museum of Art, 2012.
- William B. Jordan, "Gustave Courbet, 'Portrait of a Young Woman'," in Mind's Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne, eds. Olivier Meslay and William B. Jordan (Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 2014) 52-53.
- Gail Davitt, DMA biographical research, 1986-1987, Education files.
- Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas, TX: 1985), 87.
NOTES
This note was previously tagged #routed (and possibly !Routed_Feb15). I am removing those tags and replacing with #draft so that this note proceeds to GDocs for routing and is harvested to Brain. (EAS, 12/22/2016)
FUN FACTS source- (From PFR, undated essay on Gustave Courbet's The Wave (1950.86), DMA education files.)
Artist geography: Added more specific places and dates to the geography x-refs (12/22/2016)
- born- Ornans, France
- worked Paris (France) 1839-1873
- worked in- Netherlands (1846-1847)
- worked in Belgium (1846-1847)
- historical dates- imprisoned- Saint-Pelagie, Paris (August 14, 1871 to March 2, 1872) for involvement with the Paris Commune
- worked- Switzerland 1873-1877
- La Tour-de-Peilz (Switzerland)- died
The following rules were removed as part of the re-routing process, December 2016, based on Shyam's instruction to not write rules to exhibitions until the various exhibition IDs can be reconciled.
- I added the rule to apply to exhibition where id equals 11702 because it is relevant to Courbet-- Before Impressionism: French 19th-Century Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (2004).
- I added the rule to apply to exhibition where id equals 11706 because it is relevant to Courbet-- Masterworks of French Painting, "Bonjour Monsieur Courbet!": The Bruyas Collection of the Musee Fabre, Montpellier (2004).
ASSOCIATED CONTENT CHUNKS
AUDIO ASSETS
Dorothy Kosinski, Icons of French Painting: From Delacroix to Courbet, (Icons series lecture; with Richard Brettell, George Shackleford, Phyllis Tuchman, art critic and journalist; Masterworks of French Painting, "Bonjour Monsieur Courbet!": The Bruyas Collection of the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, October 17, 2004–January 2, 2005), lecture on November 4, 2004. Filename- IconsFrenchPainting, audio casette, transcript exists.
13313012: UMO
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
265932386: UMO. [Caption] Woodburytype of Gustave Courbet from 1860s. Source: Étienne Carjat, Wikimedia Commons, accessed July 15, 2016.
WEB RESOURCES
- Courbet, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet~Read this introduction to Courbet and see examples of his work through Khan Academy's Smarthistory.
- Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)~Read Kathryn Calley Galitz's biography of Courbet on The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2009).
- Gustave Courbet (1819-1877): A Biography~Check out this extended biography provided by the Courbet Dossier, Musée d'Orsay, 2006.
- Realism~Review the historical context and theoretical underpinnings of Realism as it was conceived by Gustave Courbet and his contemporaries (Musée d'Orsay, 2006).
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
MacAgy, Douglas. Impressionists and Their Forebears from Barbizon, Pamphlet, 1961; (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth176577/ : accessed March 16, 2015), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas , Texas.
11025: ExhID; 12712897: UMO
FUN FACTS
- Gustave Courbet was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1870 by the French government, but as an assertion of his independence from any government authority he refused to accept the commendation.
- When asked to include angels in a painting for a church, Courbet replied, "I have never seen angels. Show me an angel and I will paint one."
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to constituents where id equals 2198
Apply to objects where constituent_id equals 2198
Category
rules_operator
AND
General Description
Complex and self-obsessed, with an idealistic to make a difference in the world, Gustave Courbet grew up in the rural village of Ornans, the son of a well-to-do landowner and farmer. Largely through the force of will and self-study, he succeeded by his 30s in becoming the leading force in the realist movement in France, a painter with strong utopian political leanings who relished provocation, and became an enduring role model for every rebellious, anti-establishment artist who followed.
This was a setting that he returned to often, painting his family and his native landscape many times. Courbet went to Paris at the age of twenty to study art and quickly developed a personal style with bold brushwork and dramatic lighting. His audacious style and politically ambiguous subject matter established his reputation as a rebel by his early thirties.
Courbet was self-proclaimed as the “proudest and most arrogant man in France,” and continually aroused scandal at the Salons with his advocacy of realism. Courbet embraced contemporary subjects and attempted to infuse a sense of realism in all of his work, including rarely captured scenes of contemporary life, hunting, and landscape, along with more traditional genres such as society portraiture. Critics denounced his works featuring rural Ornans as “ugly” attempts to depict “peasants in their Sunday best.” Elevating the rural, middle-class to the subject matter of expansive Salon paintings challenged class boundaries and upset wealthy Parisian audiences, especially in the midst of class struggles and civil uprisings against the government.
When Courbet’s The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up a Seven-Year Phase of My Artistic Life was rejected for display at the 1855 World Fair (Exposition Universelle), Courbet established his own temporary gallery (The Pavilion of Realism) and created his “Realist Manifesto” for circulation. Courbet was the first artist to create independent exhibitions that circumvented the censorship of state-sponsored venues. This act of rebellion set the stage for other artists that would follow him, such as the Impressionists in the 1870s.
Courbet played an active role in political issues throughout his life. From September 1870, Courbet had served as chairman of an Arts Commission charged with the protection of works of art during the Franco-Prussian War, and under the Commune he was appointed chairman of an Artists' Federation, from which position he agitated for the destruction of the Column as a symbol of imperialism. His role in the actual demolition is ambiguous, but he nevertheless was tried, convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment at Saint-Pelagie in the rue du Puits de l'Ermite in Paris. After his release, his sense of the unsettled political situation caused Courbet to choose voluntary exile in Switzerland, where he died in 1877.
Adapted from
- "Gustave Courbet, Fox in the Snow," DMA Connect, Dallas Museum of Art, 2012.
- William B. Jordan, "Gustave Courbet, 'Portrait of a Young Woman'," in Mind's Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne, eds. Olivier Meslay and William B. Jordan (Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 2014) 52-53.
- Gail Davitt, DMA biographical research, 1986-1987, Education files.
- Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas, TX: 1985), 87.
Fun Facts
- Gustave Courbet was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1870 by the French government, but as an assertion of his independence from any government authority he refused to accept the commendation.
- When asked to include angels in a painting for a church, Courbet replied, "I have never seen angels. Show me an angel and I will paint one."
Archival Resources
MacAgy, Douglas. Impressionists and Their Forebears from Barbizon, Pamphlet, 1961; (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth176577/ : accessed March 16, 2015), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas , Texas.
11025: ExhID; 12712897: UMO
Web Resources
- Courbet, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet~Read this introduction to Courbet and see examples of his work through Khan Academy's Smarthistory.
- Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)~Read Kathryn Calley Galitz's biography of Courbet on The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2009).
- Gustave Courbet (1819-1877): A Biography~Check out this extended biography provided by the Courbet Dossier, Musée d'Orsay, 2006.
- Realism~Review the historical context and theoretical underpinnings of Realism as it was conceived by Gustave Courbet and his contemporaries (Musée d'Orsay, 2006).
Notes
This note was previously tagged #routed (and possibly !Routed_Feb15). I am removing those tags and replacing with #draft so that this note proceeds to GDocs for routing and is harvested to Brain. (EAS, 12/22/2016)
rules
Apply To
Constituents
id
Equals
2198
source file
artists_and_designers-0256.xml.nores