Gustave Courbet and the History of Realism

     

    Gustave Courbet and the History of Realism

    Gustave Courbet, 1819-1877, was a French painter who focused on a form of art in France called realism. Realism was a post enlightenment movement in art that focused on painting everyday life. Courbet rejected the Romanticism art in France and was an inspiration to other artists like Claude Manet and artists in the later Impressionist movement. Unlike other artists in France at the time, Courbet did not seek to paint an image that dramatized reality or idealize a certain scene or figure outside of the natural world, rather he sought to paint an accurate representation of the real, not merely as if recreating a photo, rather as the viewer would see a portrayal of reality through his artwork. Other artists particularly in the impressionist movements and in the brief realism period in France looked to Gustave and mimicked the idea he had of recreating the normal. Gustave paints landscapes and seascapes a lot but also sometimes human figures, nudes, and images of city and village life. His work can be distinguished from Romanticism through his use of color, texture, and light. The Romantics used these elements to create emphasis on a figure or scene whereas Courbet uses them to create natural shadows, and structures in his work.

    

Title: The Fishing Boat 

Artist: Gustave Courbet

 Date: 1865

 Medium: Oil on canvas

 Dimensions: 25 1/2 x 32 in.

 Classification: Paintings 

    This work by Gustave Courbet in 1865 depicts a Seascape with a tattered vessel beached on the rocks. If you look closely you can see the artist's brush strokes and smudges in the work especially on the beach where this texture gives an appearance of a rocky beach. The color scheme is not overly exposed to depict a fantastic sunset, instead Gustave here only paints a hint of light coming out from behind the clouds. The boat is canted in order to fit it proportionally into the canvas depicts a roughness or natural element of a scene that is frankly believable

Title: Hunting Dogs with Dead Hare

 Artist: Gustave Courbet

Date: 1857

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 36 1/2 x 58 1/2 in.

Classification: Paintings

    Another work by Gustave Courbet depicts a hunting scene with dogs and a dead rabbit. Instead of smooth sleek coats on the dog their fur appears dull and dirty while their muscles and bodies look like they are working dogs. They have defined muscles and showing rib cages that are not as popular in the Romanticism movement in France. The color scheme in this painting is quite dark overall and details are obscured in the background causing an illusion of depth in the work combined with the scale value of the landscape here.

Title: The Green Wave

Artist: Claude Monet

Date: ca. 1866–67 

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 19 1/8 x 25 1/2 in. 

Classification: Paintings

 

    Claude Monet, another French artist who was inspired largely by Realism and Gustave Courbet, developed artwork in the prominent Impressionist movement. In many ways his work captures the idea of Gustave in that he paints similar scenes with the same medium as Courbet with an emphasis on the real. In this work, Monet depicts a boat on a stormy sea, not idealized as a famous wreck but as a daily life event for some. The sea takes up most of the canvas and shows multiple ships getting tossed in rough weather.

The Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault 

Date: 1819 

Style: Romanticism 

Genre: history painting 

Media: oil, canvas 

Dimensions: 46 x 38 cm 

    Theodore Gericault was an early Romantic artist in France. Romanticism idealized the artwork and created a dramatic story often or embellished a story with an epic image. In this scene, the dark sky and rough sea portrays an idea of the situation of the shipwrecked while illuminated on the horizon is a ship the stranded are trying to flag down. The ship is illuminated as a sign of hope. The scene dramatizes a story about a shipwrecked crew that really did exist where the crew resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Title: The Bathing Pool 

Artist: Hubert Robert 

Medium: Oil on canvas 

Dimensions: 68 3/4 x 48 3/4 in. 

Classification: Paintings 

    Robert Hubert is an early French painter in the Romanticism movement. While the exact date on this painting is unknown, Hubert lived in Paris France between 1733–1808 when this work was completed. The colors here are bright and the perspective portrays the building in the picture as large and towering. The foliage is a bright radiant green with exquisite details in the sky and clouds. The emphasis is on the landscape here though there are figures distant and small in the structure and in the pool. Compare this scene to Gustave Courbet and his style. This artwork appears to be a paradise compared to the rough scenes depicted by the Realism movement.