Product Description When Gustave Courbet (1819--1877) began his career in the late 1840s, French painting was dominated by two competing styles: neoclassicism, exemplified by Ingres, and romanticism, exemplified by Delacroix. Courbet, a dynamic and boundlessly self confident man, proud of his rural origins and guided by his strong Republican beliefs, quickly established a third way. Rejecting the historical and literary subjects of the prevailing styles as too remote from actual experience, Courbet instead depicted scenes of everyday life, particularly among the peasants and the working class, with a naturalism then considered shocking. His paint handling was correspondingly direct: disdaining equally the idealized contours and cool tones of the neoclassicists and the expressive line of the romantics, he laid on his colors almost roughly, often with a palette knife instead of a brush. While Courbet's brand of realism bears a family resemblance to those of his contemporaries Daumier and Millet, its scope is much broader: his masterworks range from the Burial at Ornans (1850), a heroically scaled depiction of a villager's funeral, to the very different Origin of the World (1866), a detailed close-up of the female anatomy, and he also painted many straight landscapes, portraits, and still lifes.
This lucidly written monograph from noted art historian Ségolène Le Men provides a new understanding of how Courbet's life and milieu shaped his vast oeuvre. Le Men organizes her text both chronologically and thematically: while the five chapters correspond to the successive phases of Courbet's career, each comprises several subsections that discuss individual aspects of his work. This hybrid approach allows Le Men to present an expansive and multifaceted view of Courbet's realism, emphasizing its evolving relations with the various ideas and artistic currents of its time.
309 full color illustrations
Customer Reviews: Compiled, organized, edited, and enhanced with an informed and informative essayMay 8, 2008 Midwest Book Review(Oregon, WI USA) 11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Gustave Courbet was one of the acknowledged founders of the realist style of painting. His 19th century legacy is represented in an enormous body of work. His ideas and iconoclastic paintings served to influence the course of European art from the Impressionists to the Modernists, and continues to encourage new generations of painters to challenge and stretch the artistic and social boundaries of contemporary art. Now a seminal compendium of his work has been compiled and made available for personal, professional, academic, and community Art History collections. "Courbet" is a four-hundred page showcase for 309 flawlessly reproduced, full-color reproductions and the first truly definitive study of the man who almost singlehandedly redefined and redirected the course of western art. Compiled, organized, edited, and enhanced with an informed and informative essay by Segolene Le Men on Gustave Courbet and his work, "Courbet" is a fitting memorial and testament to one of the world's most influential and accomplished artists.
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