Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Painted Realism by Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet
Self-Portrait
1842
oil on canvas
Musée municipale de Pontarlier

Gustave Courbet
Portrait of Juliette Courbet
1844
canvas
Musée du Petit Palais, Paris

Gustave Courbet
Wounded Man
ca. 1844-54
canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

"The title of Realist was thrust upon me just as the title of Romantic was thrust upon the men of 1830. Titles have never given a true idea of things: if it were otherwise, the work would be unnecessary."

– Gustave Courbet (1851)

Gustave Courbet
Seated young man
1847
drawing
private collection

Gustave Courbet
Studies
1847
drawing
Louvre

Gustave Courbet
Artist at an easel
1847-48
drawing
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University

Gustave Courbet
Portrait of Baudelaire
ca. 1848
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Gustave Courbet
Beach near Trouville
1865
oil on canvas
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Gustave Courbet
The Wave
1869-70
oil on canvas
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

Gustave Courbet
Wrestlers
1853
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Gustave Courbet
The Sea of Palavas
1854
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier
 
Gustave Courbet
Three English Girls
1865
oil on canvas
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Gustave Courbet
Cliffs at Étretat
1870
oil on canvas
Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Gustave Courbet
Cliffs at Étretat after storm
1869-70
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

"Art in painting should consist only of the representation of things that are visible and tangible to the artist. Every age should be represented only by its own artists, that is to say, by the artists who have lived in it. I also maintain that painting is an essentially concrete art form and can exist only through the representation of both real and existing things. An abstract object, not visible, nonexistent, is not within the domain of painting."

– Gustave Courbet (1861)