Delphi Complete Paintings of Gustave Courbet
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A Burial at Ornans
In the Salon of 1850 Courbet went on to achieve even greater success with his strikingly realistic paintings of The Stone Breakers, The Peasants of Flagey and A Burial at Ornans. The latter canvas is one of the artist’s most important works, illustrating a funeral that he had attended in September 1848. It includes actual portraits of the people that were attending the funeral, including family, friends, citizens and local officials. This bold stroke was made at a time when artists were principally employing models to represent figures in historical narratives, but in A Burial at Ornans, Courbet explained that he “painted the very people who had been present at the interment, all the townspeople”. The result was a vast canvas –measuring 10 feet by 22 — offering an authentic life-sized presentation of everyday life in Ornans.
Housed today in Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the painting was later described by Courbet as “my debut and my statement of principles”. The humble citizens of the provincial town are portrayed as an immense procession of figures, with plain and stoical faces contrasting against the black fields and gloomy skyline. We now know that the scene depicts the funeral of Claude-Etienne Teste, Courbet’s great-uncle. One of the mourners is Courbet’s grandfather, with whom he was very close. His head is located at the far left, immediately behind the casket, stressing this relation’s prominence to the scene. In actuality, the grandfather had died a month before his brother-in-law. However, Courbet includes his grandfather as a symbolic gesture. Teste’s burial was the inaugural event of a new municipal cemetery, which had been opened on the outskirts of Ornans following several years of controversy between the Church, which had tried to retain control of burials. The liberal and secular townspeople had strived for compliance with the Napoleonic directive that burial grounds should be placed away from population centres due to serious health reasons. The long-delayed opening was a victory for the liberal faction, which of course included the radical Courbet.
The image is noted for its dark and melancholic hues, as the black and white figures are only broken up by beadles’ red robes. Courbet’s mourners do not make the customary theatrical gestures of grief found in history scenes of the time, while their faces appear more caricatured than ennobled. Instead we are confronted with the unmeasured scene of the everyday. Two young boys, the only faces that signify transparent emotions, offer a counterbalance to the solemnity, suggesting emotions of awe and childish fear. The nobly posed dog is represented with fine precision, breaking up the static vertical shapes of the human figures. At the centre bottom of the composition we are greeted with the gaping dark hole of the grave, which has just been dug by the kneeling man. The grave rests between the viewer and the life-sized figures, stressing the proximity of approaching death.
The painting drew both praise and fierce denunciations from critics and the public, partly due to how it upset convention by depicting a prosaic ritual on a scale that would previously have been utilised for a religious or historical subject. The art historian Sarah Faunce, a long-time curator of European painting at the Brooklyn Museum, famously described how the canvas “was judged as a work that had thrust itself into the grand tradition of history painting, like an upstart in dirty boots crashing a genteel party, and in terms of that tradition it was of course found wanting.”
Many contemporary critics accused Courbet of a deliberate pursuit of ‘ugliness’. In time, the public grew more accustomed to Courbet’s new Realist approach, as the lavish, decadent fantasy of Romanticism was gradually losing its hold upon the art world. Courbet at once recognised the importance of his enormous painting and he declared, “The Burial at Ornans is in reality the burial of Romanticism.” Along with The Stone Cutters, the painting departs radically from the controlled, idealised pictures of the Neoclassical and Romantic schools, opting instead to portray the life and emotions of humble peasants with realistic urgency. Courbet does not glorify his peasants, but portrays them boldly and honesty. This new artistic aesthetic was only concerned with ordinary facts, while shunning moral comment or idealisation — tenets that would provoke, even disgust the official art establishment of the mid-nineteenth century. “Show me an angel and I’ll paint you one!” he would flippantly challenge his detractors.
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Courbet’s ‘The Stone Breakers’ was also exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1850. It was destroyed during World War II, along with 154 other pictures, when a transport vehicle moving the pictures to the castle of Königstein, near Dresden, was bombed by Allied forces in February 1945.
The Musée d’Orsay, Paris
The Young Ladies of the Village
For the Salon of the following year, Courbet’s submission featured an entirely different subject from A Burial at Ornans. Another large canvas, The Young Ladies of the Village was completed in 1852 and is currently situated in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was intended by Courbet “to confuse the Jury”, giving them “something gracious.” Depicting the artist’s three sisters taking a Sunday walk in the country, the painting would go on to initiate a series of pictures devoted to the lives of women. The three sisters are Zélie, Juliette, and Zoé, who can be seen strolling in the Communal, a small valley near Ornans. The countryside is typical of the region, with rough pastureland bordered by chalky cliffs. One of the girls, denoted in delicate pink, offers alms to a barefooted cowherd, who looks at the gift with joy. Her nearby cows stress the humble calling of her life.
At surface level this painting may appear far less controversial than the artist’s previous submissions to the Salon, but, as so often occurs in Courbet’s work, there are strong undertones questioning the accepted conventions of the time. In spite of the attractive landscape format, with young ladies taking a leisurely stroll, we can detect a tongue-in-cheek approach. The title given to the canvas challenges accepted norms; Les Demoiselles de Village would imply females of a high social standing — certainly higher than the rural bourgeoisie standing of Courbet’s family. The Parisian viewers at the Salon may not have known that the three young ladies dressed in their Sunday best were modelled on the artist’s sisters, but they would have recognised at once that they were not “young ladies” of a high social standing. The charitable act of the ladies to the peasant girl would have been regarded by Parisians as a vulgar pretence. Yet, Courbet takes great pains to identify the universal act of charity, regardless of the status of the generous party. His art was only interested in real people with genuine feelings and honest actions.
Courbet had entertained high hopes for The Young Ladies of the Village, but when it was exhibited at the Salon, the critics attacked the canvas as both tasteless and clumsy. They reviled the models’ common features and countrified costumes, while criticising the “ridiculous” little dog and undersized cattle. They also found fault with the overall lack of unity, highlighting the artist’s awkward use of perspective and scale.
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The Wrestlers
During the early 1850’s Courbet became a celebrity of the Parisian art world and he was often spoken of as a genius, as well as a “terrible socialist”. He actively encouraged the public’s perception of him as an unschooled peasant, which in fact was very far from the truth. His burgeoning ambition, his off-hand treatment of journalists and his dogged persistence in depicting his own life in his paintings secured him a reputation for unrestrained vanity. Nevertheless, he remained consistent to his artistic aims and continued to make the real, mundane world the subject of his works. He associated his ideas of realism with political anarchism and, after gaining an audience, he promoted democratic and socialist ideas by writing politically motivated essays. D
ue to these publications, his features became the object of frequent caricature in the popular press.
In 1850, Courbet complained to a friend:
“In our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies; I must address myself to them directly.”
Housed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, The Wrestlers (1853) is another large scale canvas — this time depicting two men engaged in ‘French wrestling’, inspired by the style of Greco-Roman wrestling. The painting details a wrestling match in the former hippodrome on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The canvas was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1853 as the pendant to The Bathers. In a letter to his parents dated 13 May 1853, Courbet said of The Wrestlers that, “I have covered their nudity and the critics have not yet said anything good or bad about it”. By contrast, The Bathers divided the public’s opinion and probably distracted attention from The Wrestlers.
The powerful and muscular forms of the wrestlers, delineated with severe black shading, exaggerate their violent gestures. The wrestler to the left thrusts out his left arm, while his right strikes in the opposite direction, forming a rough oval shape with his opponent’s right arm, suggesting a connection of movement. Similarly, in the companion piece The Bathers, the gestures of the two women echo each other, playing on a theme of parallel rhythms. The spectators depicted to the right of the scene in The Wrestlers are illustrated as hazy forms, their faces little more than a single brushstrokes. Their distance from the wrestling appears too far for them to be able to clearly view the action. We are not encouraged to view the match from their viewpoint, but instead directly facing the struggling men, who appear in some ways to be involved as much in an act of love than of war. Their legs form four parallel lines, stressing the unity of their act. By employing a relation of verticals (the four parallel legs) and horizontals (the struggling arms and torsos), Courbet achieves a strong balance of forms and a compelling scene.
In 1867 The Wrestlers entered Baron Léon Hirsch’s collection at Chenonceaux. In 1908 it was purchased by Ferenc Hatvany (1881-1958), a rich Hungarian patron of arts, who had also acquired L’Origine du monde in 1913. The canvas finally entered Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts in May 1952 and it was restored to its original glory in 2010.
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The pendant piece to ‘The Wrestlers’: ‘The Bathers’, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1853, where it caused a major scandal. It was unanimously attacked by art critics for the huge nude woman in the centre and the sketchy landscape background, both contrary to artistic conventions.
‘The Wrestlers’ by Alexandre Falguière, 1875, Musée d’Orsay — Courbet’s bold handling of this subject manner would go on to influence later artists.
V. Laisné’s 1853 photograph of Courbet, close to the time of painting ‘The Wrestlers’
The Meeting or “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet”
One of Courbet’s most famous paintings, The Meeting or “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet” (1854) is yet another example of how his choice of subject sought to upset the accepted social order. Once more, the painting is a large size canvas, disregarding the customary themes reserved for such dimensions. The scene concerns a visit the artist made to Montpelier to stay with his great patron, Alfred Bruyas, in 1854. The carriage that brought him from his studio in Paris can be glimpsed leaving in the background, giving a narrative link to his journey. As Courbet is greeted by Bruyas, he is attended by the patron’s servant Calas and his trusty dog. Bruyas, the son of a wealthy financier, had dabbled in art himself and was always a melancholic dreamer, who spent much of his inheritance on acquiring avant-garde artworks, much to his father’s disgust. Over the years, he amassed a prominent collection of Courbet’s works. In the painting, Bruyas greets the socially inferior artist with mutual respect, perhaps even signifying a sense of his superior talent. The servant bows his head in deference to the artist, though in fact this would be contrary to social custom. The dog regards the artist with genuine interest, stressing the importance placed on the arrival of the artist, who clearly wins their respect.
It is the depiction of Courbet himself that is the most interesting facet of the painting. Rather than portrayed in the traditional and expected garb of a painter at that time – dressed in a coat – the artist appears in the peasant’s clothing of his home region. He does not display the due reverence that would be expected when greeting a member of the bourgeoisie, but tilts his head confidently, his chin and stylish Assyrian beard at a noticeable slanting angle. There is no sign of the humility expected between a subordinate and his patron. The artist stands in the direct sunlight, his figure nobly presented to our view, while the others are subjected to the shade, hinting at their inferior status. Courbet’s figure casts a strong shadow, connoting his genius, while his large form is accentuated by the folds and shadows of his garments. By all accounts, Courbet was an attractive man, highly favoured by his female friends, and he was very proud of his physical appearance, which he took great pains to present in a particular way. His groundbreaking views as to how an artist was free to set his own rules due to his genius would have a lasting impact on notable avant-garde painters, including Cézanne, Whistler and Picasso.
When The Meeting or “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet” was first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1855, it understandably provoked an outrage, causing many caricatures and lampoons in periodicals. It was regarded by many as a direct attack on the established social order. Also, Courbet’s bold handling of paint, entirely avoiding the finely detailed and polished technique favoured by the Salon, was criticised as being incompetent, even crude. Courbet rarely made preliminary sketches for his large-scale canvases. In keeping with his bold personality, he would begin erratically at once, painting directly on to the canvas with bold colours and confident strokes. He even liked to employ a palette knife at times instead of brush, building up thick layers of paint. Compared to the Neoclassical precision of Ingres and David, or the scholarly Romantic treatment of Delacroix, this raw technique must have appeared coarse and shocking.
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A contemporary caricature of the painting – notice how the artist exaggerates Courbet’s peasant status by giving him clogs, while Bruyas appears genuinely frightened of his guest.
The Exposition Universelle of 1855 was an International Exhibition held on the Champs-Élysées in Paris from 15 May to 15 November 1855. ‘The Meeting or “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet”’ was exhibited here.
The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern French city of Montpellier — Courbet’s patron Alfred Bruyas (1821-1876) was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre.
The Wheat Sifters
Also exhibited at the Salon of 1855, The Wheat Sifters reveals Courbet’s artistic objective of observing the ordinary people of his native region, making their actuality the basis of a type of Realist art. These works sought to bring to the public’s attention a large and until that point obscure class of citizens, elevating their lives as genuine subjects for High Art. The two young women in the painting are the artist’s sisters, Zoe (sifting the wheat) and Juliette (sitting), who previously appeared in The Young Ladies of the Village. This time they are not wearing their finest clothes, while giving charity to a child labourer, but are instead engaged in the domestic duty of refining the grain required for baking the family bread. Although the artist’s family were among the recent emerging middle-class families that were acquiring productive land due to the shifts of the Revolution, there were still demanding
labour tasks to be done in the home. The task featured in the composition involves shaking the large sieve to sift the grain, which Courbet is eager to depict as a demanding chore. The central figure of the sister in the red garment is portrayed with powerful, robust arms. Her wide shoulders, counterbalanced by a slight waist, charge the composition with a sense of power and energy. Meanwhile, Juliette appears to be tired, on the verge of falling asleep, after the rigours of her work. The towering bags of wheat in the background signify the enormity of the task before them. .