Gustave Courbet [Hardcover]

Sylvain Amic (Author), Kathryn Calley Galitz (Author), Laurence des Cars (Author), Gustave Courbet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2008

Nowadays it is difficult to conceive of the impact that Gustave Courbet's paintings made on French art of the mid-nineteenth century. At once casting himself as revolutionary, bohemian and peasant, Courbet (1819-1877) overturned a deeply-entrenched tradition of academic painting in France, and, eschewing the Romanticism of Delacroix and the NeoClassicism of Ingres, coined instead an idiom he named "Realism." Realism was not pretty, classically proportioned or literary; rather, it confronted the conditions of rural working life, then an unimaginable subject for art. The first masterpiece of this new style was "Burial at Ornans" (1849-1850), a colossal anti-epic that depicted an ordinary funeral in Courbet's home town. The contrast between the work's scale and its subject matter was pronounced, and its murky earth tones struck critics as willfully ugly--a defining reaction that would recur throughout the Modern period, particularly in the reception of early works by Manet and Picasso. Courbet's palette emphasized mass and body politically--that is, in a manner that affirmed the world itself rather than the transcendence of it. His equally famous "The Origin of the World" of 1866, which presented the female genitalia close-up, made this stance explicit. The conceptual beginnings of the "painting of Modern life" are as much in Courbet's Realism as in Charles Baudelaire's famous essay of the same name.
In this new assessment, published on the occasion of a major 2008 traveling exhibition, renowned experts shed light on the development of Courbet's realistic, critical style and trace his influence on his contemporaries and subsequent generations, as well as his relationship to early photography. At 480 pages, this monumental volume provides a long-overdue reckoning of this great artist's work.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Hatje Cantz (March 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3775721096
• ISBN-13: 978-3775721097
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #674,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Welcome to the author page of Daniel and Denise Ankele. We publish artist, genre and compilation art books! Most of our books contain an "Interesting Facts", page about the artist. We love art history, from the visual perspective. Our goal is to visually present as much of an artist's work in one book as possible. We digitally restore many of the images we include in a book, while maintaining the integrity of the artwork. Not a lot of prose, just visually stunning artwork. Please think of our books as a "coffee table book" for the kindle; or whatever device you are viewing it on. Enjoy!

Daniel and Denise Ankele are a husband and wife team who love to work and spend time together. We are artists, designers, photographers and publishers. We wear many hats for the business we are in. Whether it's photographing landscapes and wildlife or designing an art project, our collaborations are the most rewarding. We met in college and both of us graduated with a BA in photography. I'm the extrovert, while Denise is the introvert, it's a near perfect match! (nobody's perfect). She has taught me to slow down a little in life, while I have shown her to be more bold. Our travels together have covered over 2/3 of the United States and we are blessed to live on the California Central Coast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars great book, poor quality, June 12, 2008

By 

Levide - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gustave Courbet (Hardcover)

The essays of the book are so informative and useful for any scholar. I really enjoy reading this book but due to the poor and fancy typography, it makes me feel hard even reading a short paragraph. There are more than 450 color images in this book but unfortunately most of them; especially Courbet's paintings are out off focus. There are many full-page color images, one could hardly find the details of the artwork because they are blurred and dull. I would like to give 6 stars to the great texts but 2 stars for the poor quality of the printing. This book could be actually one of the best monographs on individual artist, But I think, the Met Museum owed too much to Courbet and all the contributors.

5.0 out of 5 stars Courbet at the Met: The Exhibition Catalogue, September 5, 2011

By 

Kenneth Hughes - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gustave Courbet (Hardcover)

Please see my review "Two New Surveys of Gustave Courbet" attached to the reviews of "Courbet" by Segolene Le Men, where I discuss these two simultaneously published books together.

12 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars major new study of the art, life, and ideas of the French painter Courbet, April 1, 2008

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gustave Courbet (Hardcover)

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) embraced the democratic ideas and values taking root in French Society following the overthrow of the French monarchy in the latter 1700s not only in his art, but in all other areas of his life as well. A moody bohemian-like person who naturally drifted to the margins of society, Courbet nonetheless sought political positions. At one time, he was the mayor of Paris's Sixth Arrondissement.

Courbet is often simplistically labeled a painter of Realism. But he disapproved of this label; and attention to the style, compositions, and innovations of his paintings disputes this as well. While Courbet's art patently and by intention marks a break with the formal, academicized, and rhetorical paintings popular with France's Ancien Regime, his turn to realism was not an attempt to depict nature with verisimilitude. The individuals of his paintings imply the broader, ideological reach of his paintings. As his contemporary the critic Castagnary put it, Courbet aimed to paint a democratic public "with all the seriousness, strength, and character normally reserved for gods, heroes, and kings." While Courbet replaced the later traditional subjects with the former contemporary ones, the dignified, to varying degrees romanticized presentation of such subjects carried over in Courbet's paintings. Courbet for instance never engaged in the caricature of Hogarth in England or even Daumier in his own country of newly-empowered democratic types crudely, vulgarly coming onto the social scene.

Furthermore, Courbet "is less concerned with presenting the truth [of nature as seen or experienced]...than with presenting solidity...[h]e seeks to express the materiality of the world around him." Like Caravaggio or Rembrandt, Courbet often uses shadowing--i. e., shades of darkness--to bring out various literal and evocative dimensions of his subjects; though this does not go nearly so far as Rembrandt in sometimes almost effacing the physicality of the subject. With Courbet, the physical is never lost. Although Courbet is not strictly a naturalist painter, the individuals and features of the natural world in his paintings ordinarily do have a naturalness of pose and ease of presence. Courbet's treatment of persons leaves the poses and coloration of those in the paintings of Manet--another 19th century French painter commonly regarded in the "movement" of realism--seem mannered. Such are the precise artistic qualities (instead of stereotyped) which make Courbet stand out as an exceptionally masterful painter as well as a historically important one.

Courbet's interest in photography is another subject. Period photographs, some of nude women, are juxtaposed to paintings. Courbet's interest in the relatively new field of photography was more like a curiosity that there were certain coincidental affinities. Courbet was naturally interested in photography because it reproduced parts of the immediate, sensible world--as he did in his own paintings.

This major study involving biography, criticism, art history, and a catalog of works is built on the Courbet exhibition at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art through mid-May 2008.