GENERAL DESCRIPTION
“The sea! The sea! . . . in her fury which growls, she reminds me of a caged monster who can devour me.” Gustave Courbet wrote these words in a letter to the writer Victor Hugo in 1864. The ominous and violent aspects of the artist’s description can be seen in this canvas, which depicts a wave about to break under a stormy sky. The viewer is engulfed in roiling surf, made more immediate by Courbet’s visible application of thick paint, much of which he boldly smeared on the canvas using a palette knife to conjure the sensation of moving water and foam. The Wave belongs to a series of paintings that Courbet produced during a stay in Etretat on the Normandy Coast. His subject of an isolated wave, presented up close and frozen in time, was entirely innovative and challenged the traditional academic mode of depicting idyllic or picturesque seascapes.
Excerpt from
Nicole Myers, DMA label copy, 2017.
NOTES
Entered previous titles (The Angry Sea and La Mer Ourageuse) and reformatted provenance.
P.F.R., DMA research essay, n.d., Education files.
Throughout his life Gustave Courbet continued to shock his contemporaries by rejecting traditional ideas of propriety for high art and depicting current social life without excluding its vulgarities. However, he also executed works which, although revolutionary in their technique and style, contained uncontentious subject matter. Belonging to this group are his seascapes of which The Wave is an example. The seascape painter, Eugène Boudin, took Courbet to the northern coast of France, and he returned to the coastal cities of Étretat and Trouville many times between 1865 and 1869. During these vacations he painted the waves of the sea as they broke on the shore. Courbet exclaimed not only his interest in the sea but also his own arrogance when he wrote to a friend, "O sea! your voice is tremendous, but it will never succeed in drowning out the voice of Fame as it shouts my name to the whole world." Courbet instilled into this work a great sense of drama and power which stems from the structure of the composition, the use of somber colors and, the treatment of textures. Also, the thick impasto, dark coloring and free brushwork add to the sensation that Courbet has captured the wave in motion.
Removing the TMS tag 1950.86
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, 12/19/2016)
Removed the following quotes from the fun facts field (from DMA exhibition materials, Coastlines?)
- “The sea! The sea! . . . In her fury which growls, she reminds me of the caged monster who can devour me.” (Gustave Courbet, French painter and writer, in a letter to novelist and poet Victor Hugo, 1864.)
- "A tangle of flying spray, a tide drawn from the depths of eternity, a ragged sky, the livid sharpness of the whole scene. It seems to hit you full in the chest, you stagger back, the whole room reeks of spray.” (Paul Cézanne, French painter, upon seeing another "Wave" painting by Courbet, now in the Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin.)
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: English Channel: TGN: 7005239
Depicted location and place of origin: Haute-Normandie: TGN: 7642598
Process/materials
palette knife
Historical periods
Individuals
Boudin, Eugène
Subject terms
Impressionist
brushtrokes
Atlantic ocean
rough
seascape
storm
textures
thick
wave
clouds
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
Courbet, The Wave, 1870 (Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin)~Check out the audio, essays, and map available on the Google Cultural Institute for another of Courbet's seaside works.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- This work was once in the collection of renowned American architect, Stanford White (1853-1906), who also designed the frame for another DMA painting, John White Alexander's Miss Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt (1901-1902; 2007.36).
TEACHING IDEAS
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Apply to objects where number equals 1950.86
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General Description
“The sea! The sea! . . . in her fury which growls, she reminds me of a caged monster who can devour me.” Gustave Courbet wrote these words in a letter to the writer Victor Hugo in 1864. The ominous and violent aspects of the artist’s description can be seen in this canvas, which depicts a wave about to break under a stormy sky. The viewer is engulfed in roiling surf, made more immediate by Courbet’s visible application of thick paint, much of which he boldly smeared on the canvas using a palette knife to conjure the sensation of moving water and foam. The Wave belongs to a series of paintings that Courbet produced during a stay in Etretat on the Normandy Coast. His subject of an isolated wave, presented up close and frozen in time, was entirely innovative and challenged the traditional academic mode of depicting idyllic or picturesque seascapes.
Excerpt from
Nicole Myers, DMA label copy, 2017.
Fun Facts
- This work was once in the collection of renowned American architect, Stanford White (1853-1906), who also designed the frame for another DMA painting, John White Alexander's Miss Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt (1901-1902; 2007.36).
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Courbet, The Wave, 1870 (Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin)~Check out the audio, essays, and map available on the Google Cultural Institute for another of Courbet's seaside works.
Notes
Entered previous titles (The Angry Sea and La Mer Ourageuse) and reformatted provenance.
P.F.R., DMA research essay, n.d., Education files.
Throughout his life Gustave Courbet continued to shock his contemporaries by rejecting traditional ideas of propriety for high art and depicting current social life without excluding its vulgarities. However, he also executed works which, although revolutionary in their technique and style, contained uncontentious subject matter. Belonging to this group are his seascapes of which The Wave is an example. The seascape painter, Eugène Boudin, took Courbet to the northern coast of France, and he returned to the coastal cities of Étretat and Trouville many times between 1865 and 1869. During these vacations he painted the waves of the sea as they broke on the shore. Courbet exclaimed not only his interest in the sea but also his own arrogance when he wrote to a friend, "O sea! your voice is tremendous, but it will never succeed in drowning out the voice of Fame as it shouts my name to the whole world." Courbet instilled into this work a great sense of drama and power which stems from the structure of the composition, the use of somber colors and, the treatment of textures. Also, the thick impasto, dark coloring and free brushwork add to the sensation that Courbet has captured the wave in motion.
Removing the TMS tag 1950.86
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, 12/19/2016)
Removed the following quotes from the fun facts field (from DMA exhibition materials, Coastlines?)
- “The sea! The sea! . . . In her fury which growls, she reminds me of the caged monster who can devour me.” (Gustave Courbet, French painter and writer, in a letter to novelist and poet Victor Hugo, 1864.)
- "A tangle of flying spray, a tide drawn from the depths of eternity, a ragged sky, the livid sharpness of the whole scene. It seems to hit you full in the chest, you stagger back, the whole room reeks of spray.” (Paul Cézanne, French painter, upon seeing another "Wave" painting by Courbet, now in the Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin.)
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: English Channel: TGN: 7005239
Depicted location and place of origin: Haute-Normandie: TGN: 7642598
Process/materials
palette knife
Historical periods
Individuals
Boudin, Eugène
Subject terms
Impressionist
brushtrokes
Atlantic ocean
rough
seascape
storm
textures
thick
wave
clouds
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
Objects
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1950.86
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