Ornans, Courbet's birthplace, is near the beautiful valley of the Doubs River, and it was here as a boy, and later as a man, that he absorbed the love of landscape. He was by nature a revolutionary, a man born to oppose existing order and to assert his independence; he had that quality of bluster and brutality which makes the revolutionary count in art as well as in politics. In both directions his spirit of revolt manifested itself. He went to Paris to study art, yet he did not attach himself to the studio of any of the prominent masters. Already in his country home he had had a little instruction in painting, and preferred to study the masterpieces of the Louvre. At first his pictures were not sufficiently distinctive to arouse any opposition, and were admitted to the Salon. Then followed the Funeral at Ornans, which the critics violently assailed: “A masquerade funeral, six metres long, in which there is more to laugh at than to weep over.” Indeed, the real offence of Courbet's pictures was that they represented live flesh and blood. They depicted men and women as they really are and realistically doing the business in which they are engaged. His figures were not men and women deprived of personality and idealised into a type, posed in positions that will decorate the canvas. He advocated painting things as they are, and proclaimed that la vérité vraie must be the aim of the artist. So at the Universal Exposition of 1855 he withdrew his pictures from the exhibition grounds and set them in a wooden booth, just outside the entrance. Over the booth he posted a sign with large lettering. It read, simply: “Courbet – Realist.” Like every revolutionary, he was an extremist. He ignored the fact that to every artist the truth of nature appears under a different guise according to his way of seeing and experiencing. Instead, he adhered to the notion that art is only a copying of nature and not a matter also of selection and arrangement. In his contempt for prettiness Courbet often chose subjects which may fairly be called ugly. But that he also had a sense of beauty may be seen in his landscapes. That sense, mingled with his capacity for deep emotion, appears in his marines – these last being his most impressive work. Moreover, in all his works, whether attractive or not to the observer, he proved himself a powerful painter, painting in a broad, free manner, with a fine feeling for colour, and with a firmness of pigment that made all his representations very real and stirring.

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Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Courbet, ein Kind des Materialismus und des Positivismus,<br>
war ohne Zweifel einer der komplexesten Maler des 19.<br>
Jahrhunderts. Er symbolisierte die Ablehnung der Traditionen<br>
und scheute sich nicht, die Öffentlichkeit dadurch mit der<br>
Wahrheit zu konfrontieren, dass er die Malerei von<br>
konventionellen Regeln befreite. Von diesem Zeitpunkt an war<br>
er der Anführer des Realismus in der Malerei.<br>
Dieser Text über Courbet ist das Resultat jahrelanger<br>
intensiver Forschungen und analysiert sorgfältig<br>
unterschiedliche Positionen, sowohl Lob als auch herbe<br>
Kritik, die dieser Maler zu seinen Lebzeiten erfuhr. Aufgrund<br>
seiner kunsthistorischen Präzision gelingt es Georges Riat, ein<br>
neues Licht auf das Werk dieses Künstlers, der mit der<br>
akademischen Malerei seiner Zeit brach, zu werfen.

Contents 5
Introduction: Childhood and Youth in Ornans and Besançon 7
I. The Beginnings 13
Paris and the First Salons 13
The First Exhibitions in Paris 13
The First Successes of Realism 45
Courbet’s First Successes 45
Courbet as a Socialist Painter 54
The two others works went more or less unnoticed. 65
II. Glory 87
Courbet: the Centre of Controversy 87
The Controversy surrounding Realism 107
III. Decline 171
The Beginning of the End 171
The Case of The Woman with the Parrot 171
Courbet under the Commune 194
The Fall 215
The Arrest 215
Conclusion: Death of a Master 247
Chronology 251
List of Illustrations 252

Child of materialism and positivism, Courbet was without a doubt one of the most complex painters of the nineteenth century. Symbolising the rejection of traditions, Courbet did not hesitate to confront the public with the truth by liberating painting of conventional rules. He became from then on the leader of pictorial realism. This text on Courbet is the result of years of intensive research and traces with great care contradictory testimonies, the praises as well as the negative critics this controversial painter had during his times. By his precision as an art historian, Georges Riat sheds

2025-10-27