the realism of courbet

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The Realism of Courbet

Source: The Lotus Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Apr., 1919), p. 169Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20544103 .

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THE AMAZON

From the painting by Gustav Courbet







Volume X April, I9I9 Number 4

THE REALISM OF COURBET

HE AMAZON, a portrait of

Louise Colet, reproduced upon

the opposite page, is a specially

fine example of the work of Gustav

Courbet, a centenary' exhibition of whose

paintings is now being held at theMetro

politan Museum. The subject is 'awriter

of stories, who is supposed to have been

the original of Amandorine in Champfleurv's Mascarade de IaVie Parisienne.

As the founder of the Realistic SchoolI

of Painting, Courbet's principles have

furnished some of the greatest names to

modern art. Only things actually seen

should be represented, he held, 'and the'

function of the imagination is to find the

fullest expression of the- chosen subject.

Whistler, Homer, and Eakins,- then of

the foremost'American painters, were his

followers, and it is fitting that the hun

dredth anniversary of his birth, which

took place on the tenth of June, I8I9,

should be commemorated in this country.

As a student, Courbet felt himself

drawn to the great realists of the past

Holbein, Correggio, Velasquez, the little

Dutch Masters, and above all Rembrandt,

the exact image of life, he said, whocharms the intelligent, but stuns and

massacres the imbeciles. His bent was

to copy exactly what he saw, and hiswork

had none of the artificial arrangements

and embellishments that even innovators

likeRousseau and Corot felt called upon

to invoke. In'this, as in all his practices,

says Mr. Bryson Burroughs, he seems

merely to have abandoned himself to his

preferenceswith no idea of establishing a

new sestheticism until the idea'was suggested by theori zing riends. I't isproba

ble that his realismwas part of an inevita

ble artistic development, for it followed

as a reaction to the courtly ideality of

the eighteenth century, and when interest

w'as returning to the more or lessnatural

classic art.

Courbet came of a peasant family at

Ornans, Franche-Comte, and' his only

gift'was for painting. In temperament he

remained always -heedless and impulsive

as a schoolboy, though in his later years

he became involved in political enter

prises, and died in exile. The artist, re

vealed through his pictures, is an ener

getic, exuberant person of enormous ap

petites, filledwith the joy of life and the

love of his work. His genius lay in his

susceptibility to thispower, and fecundityof nature, and his marvellous ability to

express these in his art.





the realism of courbet

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