Gustave Courbet

Realism

His principle: paint only what you really see.

💡 Did you know? Courbet declared: „Show me an angel and I will paint one“: he painted only what he actually saw.

France

Courbet came from Ornans in the Franche-Comté, whose peasants and landscape he made famous.

💡 Did you know? His huge canvases of ordinary country folk outraged the Paris public, who knew such formats only from history paintings.

ordinary workers at life size

Courbet painted stonebreakers, peasants and mourners on a scale until then reserved for kings and saints.

💡 Did you know? Such formats had otherwise been reserved for pictures of kings.

his own Pavilion of Realism

One of the first solo exhibitions in art history.

💡 Did you know? In 1855 Courbet built his own „Pavilion of Realism“ beside the World's Fair: one of the first solo exhibitions in art history.

the Paris Commune

As a supporter of the Paris Commune, Courbet took part in toppling the Vendôme Column in 1871, for which he was imprisoned and fined.

💡 Did you know? Afterwards he had to flee into exile in Switzerland.

1877 in Switzerland

His Realism paved the way for the Impressionists.

💡 Did you know? To escape the huge fine for the Vendôme Column, Courbet fled to Switzerland, where he died impoverished in 1877.

A Burial at Ornans

Around 1850: a plain village burial, vast like a history painting.

💡 Did you know? Over 40 life-size mourners: a village funeral as monumental as a history painting; a scandal in 1850.

The Painter's Studio

Painted around 1850.

💡 Did you know? Courbet called the enigmatic giant canvas a „real allegory“: it gathers his whole life into one room.

Woman with a Parrot

Painted around 1866.

💡 Did you know? The frank nude of the „Woman with a Parrot“ provoked the audience of the Paris Salon.

The Woman in the Waves

Painted around 1868.

💡 Did you know? Courbet painted the woman in a bold, sensual pose right in the surf of the sea.

The Meeting (Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet!)

Painted around 1854.

💡 Did you know? Courbet shows himself with self-assurance, greeted on the road by his patron: a monument to the artist's pride.

The Stone Breakers

Around 1849: two labourers at hard roadwork, a manifesto of Realism.

💡 Did you know? The picture of poor road workers was seen as politically charged; the original burned in the war in 1945.

Young Ladies Beside the Seine

Painted around 1857.

💡 Did you know? Two idle young women on the riverbank, to bourgeois viewers they seemed scandalously languid.

The Wheat Sifters

Painted around 1854.

💡 Did you know? Courbet's own sisters modelled for the working peasant women.

The Wounded Man

Painted around 1844.

💡 Did you know? X-rays revealed that beneath the wounded man Courbet had originally painted himself with a lover.

Killing a Deer

Painted around 1867.

💡 Did you know? Courbet was a passionate hunter and repeatedly painted animals in the snowy Jura.

Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet (1819 to 1877) was a French painter and founder of Realism who portrayed ordinary people in monumental pictures.

💡 Did you know? Courbet was a rebel in art as in politics: his role in the Paris Commune cost him his freedom and his fortune.