Jean Desire Gustave Courbet example essay topic

Gustave Courbet, the RealistLet's first begins with who Jean Desire Gustave Courbet was. Gustave Courbet was a famous French painter. Courbet was born in Ornans, France on June 10th of 1819. Ornans, France is a filled with forests and pasture's perfect for realist paintings.

At the age of 14 Courbet was already in art training receiving lessons from Pere Baud a former student of a neo-classical painter named Baron Gros. Courbet's parents hoped he would go off and study law when he moved out in 1837. To there misfortune he had enrolled in at the art academy. At the art academy Courbet received lessons from Flajoulot another famous neo-classicist.

At twenty years old Gustave Courbet went to Paris, the European center for art, political, and radical activists. It was about this time Courbet had started to study in the studio of the obscure painter M. Steuben. Courbet's art was considered realism. Realism in art is basically taking every day acts and people and putting it on the canvas (ie: paint, drawing).

This was Courbet's specialty. Gustave Courbet has painted many painting. A few of his most famous was "Wounded Man" which he painted in 1847, and was heavily rejected by the salon. A few of his other famous paintings was "After Dinner at Ornans", "Funeral at Ornans", and "Stone breakers". This is only a few of his many famous paintings.

Between 1841 and 1847 only three of the twenty-five pieces he submitted were approved and passed by the selection committee of the salon. The first ten years he was out on his own he sold almost no painting and made almost no money, thus he relied on his family to send him money to help support him with his artwork. Somewhere in this time period Gustave Courbet met a young lady named Virginia Binet whom little is known about except that she was his mistress and bore him a son in 1847. When 1848 rolled around a Dutch art dealer viewed one of Gustave's pieces and invited him to Holland to make a deal. It was about this time Courbet was getting excited and felt his big breakthrough was coming very soon. A new art school was being formed with Jean Desire Gustave Courbet as the head of it.

The school was named Brasserie And ler and quickly nicknamed "The Temple of Realism". The Brasserie was the first place to coin the term "realism" to describe a style of art and literature and philosophy. At this time Gustave Courbet was becoming famous. He was the talk of the town. Courbet had sort of taken on of literature to help distance himself from the bourgeois world of Paris and to help him be more accepted in the avant-garde society.

He wrote: "Behind this laughing mask of mine which you know, I conceal grief and bitterness, and a sadness which clings to my heart like a vampire. In the society in which we live, it doesn't take much to reach the void'. February of 1848 rioting broke out in the streets of Paris because Louise Philippe abdicated and a provisional republican government took control. Even though the political party's were fighting the salon opened without a selection committee. Gustave Courbet now had ten pieces of his artwork on display as apposed to none just years before.

1848 was the year for Gustave Courbet. The critics loved his paintings and his first major piece was "After Dinner at Ornans" won a gold medal and the government bought the painting. The medal means that at future salons Courbet was exempt from the selection procedure. It was around this time the people were beginning to protest against the realist movement. Courbet started to stray away from his original romantic style paintings and got comfortable making pieces including scenes of Ornans. Courbet's next major piece was to be "Burial at Ornans" which was shown from 1850-1850 at the salon.

This humongous painting was too including almost everyone from the district. The outcome of this piece looked like it was the beginning of his end. The critics all hated the piece and said things like, it was too big, the figures were ugly, and the beadles look drunk. From this point on all the painting Courbet created were flukes with the critics and people. In 1853 the government offered Courbet an olive branch he blew it off with out even thinking about it.

At an attempt of making a come back, the director of fine arts, Comte de Nieuwerkerke approached him and presented an idea that Courbet should create a major painting for the upcoming "World Exhibition". The deal was that Courbet must first make a sketch of his work then have it "approved" by Comte de Nieuwerkerke. Courbet rejected the offer swiftly. Disappointed, but not ready to quite just yet Gustave Courbet staged his own one-man exhibition at an 1855 show of artistic independence. Courbet's pieces were set-up under a banner that read "REALISM" and he included paintings of his that date back to the early 1840's. In the early 1850's Virginia Binet had left Courbet and she took their young son with her.

Courbet said his art is what kept him busy after she had left. Coubet's recognition was getting out and he realized he no longer needs to rely on the salon to show his work and to get the word out. After 1855 Courbet traveled a lot. When he arrived in Frankfurt he was treated like a celebrity and the local academy opened a studio for him. He went on to travel to Tou ville and he painted with the then youthful Monet.

Courbet went on and exhibited his art in places such as Germany, Holland, Belgium, and England. Courbet then became a member of the Commune. Courbet proceeded to help destroy the column in the Place Vendome which was a monument to Napoleon's Victories. When the Commune failed Gustave Courbet was arrested and sentenced to six months of prison and a fine of 500 francs. His sentence began in September of 1871 but due to illness he was released earlier only to be handed over to a clinic at Neu illy. In 1872 his luck didn't get any better and his son died.

To add to all the frustration and misfortune in May of 1873 the new government ordered Courbet to pay for reconstruction of the Vendome Column. The cost tallied over 300,000 francs. He then fleas from France to Switzerland. Jean Desire Gustave Courbet died on the last day of 1877. In 1919 his remains were transported to a cemetery in Ornans. Gustave Courbet was considered the realist of his day because he basically founded the form of art "Realism".

He went out on a limb to create these masterpieces that in the beginning no one liked. He stuck true to what he believed and kept on painting his "realistic" paintings. He then made it big and was a celebrity, only later to be arrested and thrown in prison.