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Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( UK: / ˈkʊərbeɪ / KOOR-bay, [1] US: / kʊərˈbeɪ / koor-BAY, [2] French: [ɡystav kuʁbɛ]; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) [3] was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting.
Jun 6, 2024 · Gustave Courbet (born June 10, 1819, Ornans, France—died December 31, 1877, La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland) was a French painter and leader of the Realist movement. Courbet rebelled against the Romantic painting of his day, turning to everyday events for his subject matter.
Gustave Courbet was a controversial French painter, who bridged the gap between Romanticism and the Impressionist school of painters.
The self-proclaimed “proudest and most arrogant man in France,” Gustave Courbet created a sensation at the Paris Salon of 1850–51 when he exhibited a group of paintings set in his native Ornans, a village in the Franche-Comté in eastern France.
Gustave Courbet's democratic eye revolutionized Western Art. His new form of Realism paved the way for other Modern movements, such as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism . Manet , Monet , Renoir , and others had direct contact with Courbet and were profoundly affected by the man and his paintings.
Courbet was the main exponent of Realism in 19th-century French painting. His work contrasts with the Classicism of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and the Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix.
Until it joined the collections of the Musée d'Orsay in 1995 – by which time it belonged to the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan – The Origin of the World epitomised the paradox of a famous painting that is seldom actually seen. Courbet regularly painted female nudes, sometimes in a frankly libertine vein.
