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| Gustave Courbet Self-Portrait 1842 oil on canvas Musée municipale de Pontarlier |
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| Gustave Courbet Portrait of Juliette Courbet 1844 canvas Musée du Petit Palais, Paris |
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| 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)
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| Gustave Courbet Seated young man 1847 drawing private collection |
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| Gustave Courbet Studies 1847 drawing Louvre |
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| Gustave Courbet Artist at an easel 1847-48 drawing Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University |
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| Gustave Courbet Portrait of Baudelaire ca. 1848 oil on canvas Musée Fabre, Montpellier |
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| Gustave Courbet Beach near Trouville 1865 oil on canvas Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne |
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| Gustave Courbet The Wave 1869-70 oil on canvas Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt |
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| Gustave Courbet Wrestlers 1853 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Gustave Courbet The Sea of Palavas 1854 oil on canvas Musée Fabre, Montpellier |
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| Gustave Courbet Three English Girls 1865 oil on canvas Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen |
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| Gustave Courbet Cliffs at Étretat 1870 oil on canvas Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
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| 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)