COURBET, GUSTAVE (1819-1877)

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 319 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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COURBET, GUSTAVE (1819-1877) , French painter, was born at Ornans (Doubs) on the loth of June 1819. He went to Paris 111 1839, and worked at the studio of Steuben and Hesse; but his independent spirit did not allow him to remain there long, as he preferred to

work

WORK

out his own way by the study of Spanish, Flemish and French painters. His first works, an " Odalisque," suggested by

Victor

VICTOR
VICTOR, GAIUS
JULIUS
- JULIUS
(4th cent. A.D.)
VICTOR, SEXTUS AURELIUS

Hugo, and a " Lelia," illustrating George Sand, were literary subjects; but these he soon abandoned for the study of real life. Among other works he painted his own portrait with his dog, and " The Man with a Pipe," both of which were rejected by the jury of the Salon; but the younger school of critics, the neo-romantics and realists, loudly sang the praises of Courbet, who by 1849 began to be famous, producing such pictures as " After Dinner at Ornans " and " The Valley of the Loire." The Salon of 185o found him triumphant with the " Burial at Ornans," the " Stone-Breakers " and the " Peasants of Flazey." His style still gained in individuality, as in "

Village

VILLAGE

Damsels " (1852), the " Wrestlers," " Bathers," and "A Girl Spinning " (1852). Though Courbet's realistic

work

WORK

is not devoid of importance, it is as a landscape and sea painter that he will be most honoured by posterity. Sometimes, it must be owned, his

realism

REALISM (from Low Lat. realis, appertaining to res, things, as opposed to ideas and imaginations)

is rather coarse and brutal, but when he paints the forests of Franche-Comte, the " Stag-Fight," " The Wave," or the " Haunt of the Does," he is inimitable. When Courbet had
made a name as an artist he grew ambitious of other

glory

GLORY (through the O. Fr. glorie, modern gloire, from Lat. gloria, cognate with Gr. KXebs, abets)

; he tried to promote democratic and social science, and under the Empire he wrote essays and dissertations. His refusal of the

cross

CROSS

of the Legion of Honour, offered to him by

Napoleon

NAPOLEON

III., made him immensely popular, and in 1871 he was elected, under the Commune, to the chamber. Thus it happened that he was responsible for the destruction of the Vendome column. A council of war, before which he was tried, condemned him to pay the cost of restoring the column, 300,000 francs (b2,000). To escape the necessity of working to the end of his days at the orders of the State in order to pay this sum, Courbet went to Switzer-land in 1873, and died at La Tour du Peilz, on the 31st of December 1877, of a disease of the

liver

LIVER (O. Eng. lifer; cf. cognate forms, Dutch lever, Ger. Leber, Swed. lefver, &c.; the O. H. Ger. forms are libara, lipora, &c.; the Teut. word has been connected with Gr. i'prap and Lat. jecur)

aggravated by intemperance. An exhibition of his works was held in 1882 at the Ecole des

Beaux

BEAUX, CECILIA (1863– )

-Arts.
See Champfleury, Les Grandes Figures d'hier et d'aujourd' hui (Paris, 1861) ; Mantz, " G. Courbet," Gaz. des

beaux

BEAUX, CECILIA (1863– )

-arts (Paris, 1878) ; Zola, Mes Haines (Paris, 1879) ; C. Lemonnier, Les Peintres de la Vie (Paris, 1888). (H. FR.)

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