Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet, the Realist

Let's first begins with who Jean Desire Gustave Courbet was. Gustave Courbet was a famous French painter. Courbet was born in Ornans, France on June 10th of 1819. Ornans, France is a filled with forests and pasture's perfect for realist paintings. At the age of 14 Courbet was already in art training receiving lessons from Pere Baud a former student of a neo-classical painter named Baron Gros. Courbet's parents hoped he would go off and study law when he moved out in 1837. To there misfortune he had enrolled in at the art academy. At the art academy Courbet received lessons from Flajoulot another famous neo-classicist. At twenty years old Gustave Courbet went to Paris, the European center for art, political, and radical activists. It was about this time Courbet had started to study in the studio of the obscure painter M. Steuben.

Courbet's art was considered realism. Realism in art is basically taking every day acts and people and putting it on the canvas (ie: paint, drawing). This was Courbet's specialty. Gustave Courbet has painted many painting. A few of his most famous was "Wounded Man" which he painted in 1847, and was heavily rejected by the salon. A few of his other famous paintings was "After Dinner at Ornans", "Funeral at Ornans", and "Stonebreakers". This is only a few of his many famous paintings. Between 1841 and 1847 only three of the twenty-five pieces he submitted were approved and passed by the selection committee of the salon. The first ten years he was out on his own he sold almost no painting and made almost no money, thus he relied on his family to send him money to help support him with his artwork. Somewhere in this time period Gustave Courbet met a young lady named Virginia Binet whom little is known about except that she was his mistress and bore him a son in 1847.

When 1848 rolled around a Dutch art dealer viewed one of Gustave's pieces and invited him to Holland to make a deal. It was about this time Courbet was getting excited and felt his big breakthrough was coming very soon. A new art school was being formed with Jean Desire Gustave Courbet as the head of it. The school was named Brasserie Andler and quickly nicknamed "The Temple of Realism". The Brasserie was the first place to coin the term "realism" to describe a style of art and literature and philosophy. At this time Gustave Courbet was becoming famous. He was the talk of the town. Courbet had sort of taken on of literature to help distance himself from the bourgeois world of Paris and to help him be more accepted in the avant-garde society. He wrote: "Behind this laughing mask of mine which you know, I conceal grief and bitterness, and a sadness which clings to my heart like a vampire. In the society in which we live, it doesn't take much to reach the void".

February of 1848 rioting broke out in the streets of Paris because Louise Philippe abdicated and a provisional republican government took control. Even though the political party's were fighting the salon opened without a selection committee. Gustave Courbet now had ten pieces of his artwork on display as apposed to none just years before. 1848 was the year for Gustave Courbet. The critics loved his paintings and his first major piece was "After Dinner at Ornans" won a gold medal and the government bought the painting. The medal means that at future salons Courbet was exempt from the selection procedure. It was around this time the people were beginning to protest against the realist movement. Courbet started to stray away from his original romantic style paintings and got comfortable making pieces including scenes of Ornan. Courbet's next major piece was to be "Burial at Ornans" which was shown from 1850-1850 at the salon. This humongous painting was too including almost everyone from the district. The outcome of this piece looked like it was the beginning of his end. The critics all hated the piece and said things