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
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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.
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