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Gustave Courbet
is generally recognized as the leader of the French Realist movement.
Courbet attempted to show his political leanings through his choice
of lifestyle and the subjects of his paintings.
- Courbet's
life as a bohemian demonstrated his unglamorous view of the world.
- Courbet painted
ordinary people and places to portray the French people as a political
entity.
Courbet's
self portrait, The Wounded Man, painted in 1855,
shows a Christ-like figure who has presumably sacrificed
his life for a cause. Courbet sacrificed his comfortable
bourgeoisie lifestyle to live like a bohemian in Paris.
picture
coutesy of www.ibiblio.org
Courbet's
Life: The Artist's Studio
Gustave
Courbet was born into a wealthy bourgeoisie family in 1819.
In 1841, Courbet left the countryside where he grew up to
study law in Paris. However, this is where he discovered
the joy of painting, and soon all interest in the law was
gone. Courbet lived a Bohemian lifestyle, sacrificing many
bourgeoisie comforts to paint in a creative environment.
The
Painter's Studio is
an allegory of Courbet's life, bringing together
the different people he encountered. The painting
is also a picture of the ages of man; it represents
all stages of life, from the child at his mother's
breast to the gravedigger in the background. In
The Painter's Studio, Courbet also portrays
representatives of society's upper, middle, and
lower classes.
The
Painter's Studio
courtesy of www.ibiblio.org
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The
Stone Breakers: Courbet's
Ordinary People
Many
of Courbet's paintings focus on everyday people and places in daily
French life. Courbet painted these ordinary people in an attempt
to portray the French people as a political entity. In this way
Courbet's republicanism showed through in his work. Courbet truthfully
portrayed ordinary people and places, leaving out the glamour that
most French painters at that time added to their works. Because
of this, Courbet became known as the leader of the Realist movement.
The
Stone Breakers courtesy
of www.ricks.edu
The
Stone Breakers, painted in 1849, depicts two ordinary
peasant workers. Courbet painted without any apparent sentiment;
instead, he let the image of the two men, one too young
for hard labor and the other too old, express the feelings
of hardship and exhaustion that he was trying to portray.
Courbet shows sympathy for the workers and disgust for the
upper class by painting these men with a dignity all their
own.
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