Gustave Courbet

by Gerstle Mack

No biographer could ask for a more colorful or difficult subject than the painter and revolutionary Gustave Courbet. One of the fathers of Realism, a style he created with his huge canvases of his birthplace in Ornans ( After Dinner at Ornans, 1949; Funeral at Ornans, 1850, and The Stonebreakers, 1850), Courbet chose his subjects from ordinary life and portrayed them with the same monumental dignity as the great men of history. A man with big appetites for life, women, and politics, he frequently found himself at odds with French authorities, especially during the period of the Commune when he and his friends pulled down the Vendome Column. Impressionism and Modernism would be unthinkable without his fierce opposition to the academies of art. This biography by one of the most reliable students of French art paints a large and fascinating canvas, which Courbet dominates but never overwhelms.

Genres: Art

488 pages, Paperback

Published August 22, 1989

Reviews

[Tejas Desai · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too reliant on primary sources and letters, although it's great to hear Courbet in his own words. I would have liked to hear more about Courbet's followers and the other practitioners of realism as well as Manet and the Impressionists. Mack does a good job of the historical context of revolutionary France, I learned more about the petty politics and Courbet's role in it. In general, I would have liked more about art and movements rather than politics and personal history. But a well-written read.

[Joey Robert Parks]

I bought this book from a garage sale my mom was having. It looked like something I would enjoy, but after it sat on my shelves for 12 months, unread, I realized I'd bought it as a connection to my mom and not because I was eager to read it. Obviously, I wasn't. Or I would have been reading it.