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Courbet's paintings were concerned with events of his own time. The Stone Breakers, of 1849,
fully embodied his artistic and social principles, and caused a scandal when it was exhibited at the
Salon of 1850. A public accustomed to the grandiloquence of the Neo-classicists and the
Romanticists did not understand such a direct and hard study of reality. Courbet depicted the
dehumanising labour of breaking stones into gravel for road repairs, undertaken by an old man and
a boy with perfect dignity. Proudhon, a Socialist writer, called it a parable from the Gospels. The
simplicity of the relief-like composition is deeply Classical. Yet its objectivity betrays Courbet's
own devotion to the new art of photography, which he practised as an amateur. The power of
Courbet's compositions was matched by the workmanliness of his methods. His paint was first laid
on with the palette knife. When the knife-work was dry, he worked up the surface with effects of
light and colour with a brush, but it is the underlying palette-knife construction that gives his figures
their density and weight.
In the same Salon of 1850 Courbet showed A Burial at Ornans, which fulfilled his
requirements for true history painting. The inescapable end of an ordinary inhabitant of the village
is represented with sober realism. Accompanied by altar boys, pallbearers, and women the parish
priest reads the Office for the Dead before the open grave, around which stand family and friends
some with handkerchiefs to their eyes. The canvas, about twenty-two feet long, was so large that the
artist could not step back in his studio to see the whole work. In a great S-curve in depth, the figures
stand with the simple dignity of the Apostles in Masaccio's Tribute Money. Locked between the
rocky escarpment above and the grave beneath, these people realise their destiny is bound to the
earth, yet they seem to comprehend and to accept their fate. Each face is painted with all of
Courbet's dignity and sculptural density recalling the prophets of Donatello. This is one of the
strongest and noblest works of all French painting.
In 1855 Courbet's paintings were rejected by the Universal Exposition. These works included
the Burial and a more recent programme work The Studio: A Real Allegory Concerning Seven
Years of My Artistic Life, painted in 1854-55. A special shed for a large exhibition of Courbet's
paintings, including the rejected works was constructed. The artist called this building The Pavilion
of Realism. For the catalogue he wrote a preface setting forth the principles of his art. In The Studio
the relationship between artist and sitters as seen by Velazquez and Goya is exactly reversed Instead
of playing a subsidiary role at one side, the artist displays himself in the centre, at work on a
completely visible landscape, similar to those that adorn the walls of the dim studio. A model who
has just shed her clothes, probably representing Truth Iooks on approvingly, her figure is
beautifully revealed in light. The group at the left remains obscure, but it comprises figures drawn
from "society at its best, its worst, and its average," with whom the painter had come into contact.
Few of the figures look at the artist; all are silent. Delacroix called the picture a masterpiece,
reproaching the jury for having "refused one of the most remarkable works of our times."
When Courbet reached material success, something of the rude power of his early works
vanished from his portraits of the French aristocracy.
After the revolution of 1870 Courbet joined the short-lived Paris Commune, and took part in
the commission that decreed the dismantling of the Colonne Vendome. For this he was sentenced
under the Third Republic to six months in prison, which he spent in painting still lifes of
extraordinary clarity and simplicity and landscapes from photographs. Later he was charged a huge
sum for rebuilding the monument, fled to Switzerland, and died in exile, his belongings were sold
by the authorities to pay the debt.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Courbet [
]; Paris Commune [
]; Switzerland [
];
Ornans [
]; mountainous [
]: subsidiary [
]; pavilion
[
]; exile [
]; France [
]; obscure [
]; escarpment
[
]; extraordinary [
]; catalogue [
]; amateur [
];
requirements [
]; dehumanising [
]; region [
]
NOTES
The Stone Breakers - "Каменотесы"