Gustave Courbet

French, 1819 - 1877

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French painter (1819–1877)

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Four boats with low masts sit on a sandy beach next to rocky cliffs under a cloud-filled sky in this horizontal landscape painting. Three of the boats are clustered together near the center of the composition. The fourth is a short distance away to our left. The beach is painted with visible dabs and strokes of tan and cream white with gray shadows. The vertical cliffs are not much taller than the boats' masts and are painted in with smears and smudges of warm brown and black. The beach is dark with shoals where it meets the water beyond the boats. Two sailboats with white sails are on the water in the distance. Bands of parchment white, gray, and smoky lavender purple gather in the icy blue sky above the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. The artist signed the work in rust-red letters in the lower right corner, “G. Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, Boats on a Beach, Etretat, c. 1872/1875, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.7

Boats on a Beach, Etretat

Gustave Courbet · c. 1872/1875 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.7

Towering, sheer cliffs loom to our left, over a sunny beach scattered with boats in this horizontal landscape painting. The chalky, rugged faces of the cliffs are dappled and streaked with olive green, dark brown, gray, rust red, and mustard yellow. The horizon comes a third of the way up the composition so the cliffs are outlined against the powder-blue sky, which is loosely veiled with wispy, cream-white clouds. The mossy tops of the cliffs are illuminated by sunlight from the upper left, and a solitary leafy tree leans into view between the two cliff-tops closest to us. Four empty, wooden boats sit on the flat, sandy beach below. We look onto the long sides of the two closest to us. One is stripped and appears dilapidated, while the one behind it has a ginger-brown sail attached to the mast in the prow. Two more wooden poles or oars jut out from the cockpit on either side of the mast. A small flag with horizontal bands of blue, white, and red flies from a short pole near the middle of the boat. A bundle the same color as the unfurled sail sits in the boat. Another sail is spread out on the sand to our right, and coiled ropes lie nearby. The two other boats are slightly further back on the right, with one angled to our left while we view the other straight on. There are two people a short distance beyond these boats. One faces our left in profile while the other sits on the sand looking toward the water. Thin trails of white delineate the low surf and a few sailboats drift by on the brilliant blue water. The artist signed the lower left, “G. Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, Beach in Normandy, c. 1872/1875, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.10

Beach in Normandy

Gustave Courbet · c. 1872/1875 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.10

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Landscape with Fisherman

Gustave Courbet · 1872 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.136.56

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Landscape

Gustave Courbet, Cherubino Pata · c. 1869/1877 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2015.143.1

Shown from the waist up, a woman with pale, peachy skin reads a book with one elbow propped on a grassy bank in this horizontal painting. The woman’s body is angled to our right, and she looks down at a pale green-covered book held in her right hand, which is in the lower left corner of the composition. The woman has dark brows over hooded eyes, and her dark brown hair falls loosely behind her shoulders. She has a round face, straight nose, and pale lips. She touches her hair with her left hand, to our right, with that pinky delicately crooked. One strap of a sleeveless, pearl-white chemise falls off the shoulder of that arm, and the dress nestles around her belly, revealing much of the other breast. Leafy trees and gray rocks are loosely painted behind her. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “G. Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, A Young Woman Reading, c. 1866/1868, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.114

A Young Woman Reading

Gustave Courbet · c. 1866/1868 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.114

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The Promenade

Gustave Courbet · 1866 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.113

A narrow strip of beach and then a vivid turquoise stretch of water give way to a towering, hazy sky in this square landscape painting. The beach is painted with strokes of tan and peachy brown and skimmed with dark brown or black to create the impression of rocks or shells. The water extends to the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up this composition, in shades of topaz and powder blue. Piles of fluffy clouds above are painted with loose strokes of cotton and gossamer white, creating a soft, blurred look. The artist signed and dated the canvas in the lower left corner with red paint, “’66 Gustave Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, Calm Sea, 1866, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.10

Calm Sea

Gustave Courbet · 1866 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.10

We stand on a beach lined with black rocks and boulders looking out onto the water below a brick-red sky that dominates this nearly square landscape painting. The sky along the top edge of the canvas is turquoise but it quickly fades to rich, salmon pink and then to deep red along the horizon, which comes only a quarter of the way up the composition. Steel-gray clouds ripple across the width of the painting. Two sailboats float in the water in the far distance. The water is painted the same turquoise of the sky with some reflections of the deep pink and red. Close to us, water breaks around the jagged black rocks beyond the a strip of mustard-yellow and tan sand that lines the lowest edge of the canvas. The artist signed the work in dark red paint in the lower left corner: “G. Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, The Black Rocks at Trouville, 1865/1866, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 2011.51.1

The Black Rocks at Trouville

Gustave Courbet · 1865/1866 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2011.51.1

A pair of arched cave openings yawn in a steep, rocky cliff face that fills this horizontal painting. The cliff face is painted with dabs and textured strokes of slate gray, peachy tan, and muted blue, and some moss grows along crevices to our left. The opening to our left of center is four times the size of the smaller opening next to it. Murky green water reflects the shadowy openings and the pier-like stone between them. The water churns white over large boulders to our right, in the lower corner of the canvas. A pale-skinned man, minuscule in scale in front of the larger opening, stands barefoot with his back to us. His pants are rolled up over his knees and the long shirt sleeves up to the elbow under a vest. One hand is raised to hold a long stick. He is on what might be a pier stretching across the water. The artist signed the work with red paint in the lower left corner, “Gustave Courbet.”
Gustave Courbet, La Grotte de la Loue, 1864, oil on canvas, Gift of Charles L. Lindemann, 1957.6.1

La Grotte de la Loue

Gustave Courbet · 1864 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1957.6.1

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Ornans, Birthplace of the Artist

Gustave Courbet · c. 1860 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2015.19.9

Bibliography

1856

  • Silvestre, Théophile. Histoire des artistes vivants, français et étrangers. Paris, 1856: 211-277.

1878

  • Mantz, Paul. "Gustave Courbet." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 17 (1878): 514-527; 18 (1878): 17-29, 371-384.

  • d'Ideville, Henri. Gustave Courbet, notes et documents sur sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris, 1878.

1880

  • Gros-Kost, Emile. Gustave Courbet: Souvenirs intimes. Paris, 1880.

1882

  • Castagnary, Jules. Exposition des oeuvres de Gustave Courbet à l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Paris, 1882.

1897

  • Estignard, Alexandre. G. Courbet, sa vie et ses oeuvres. Besançon, 1897.

1906

  • Riat, Georges. Gustave Courbet, peintre. Paris, 1906.

1911

  • Castagnary, Jules. "Fragments d'un livre sur Courbet." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 4th ser., 5 (1911): 1-20; 6 (1911): 488-497; 7 (1912): 19-30.

1918

  • Duret, Theodore. Courbet. Paris, 1918.

1929

  • Léger, Charles. Courbet et son temps. Paris, 1925 (final edition: 1948).

1948

  • Courthion, Pierre. Courbet raconté par lui-même et par ses amis. 2 vols. Geneva, 1948.

1951

  • Mack, Gerstle. Gustave Courbet. London, 1951.

1973

  • Clark, Timothy J. Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. London, 1973.

  • Nicolson, Benedict. Courbet: The Studio of the Painter. New York, 1973.

1977

  • Fernier 1977.

  • Toussaint, Hélène. Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). Exh. cat. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1977.

1978

  • Fernier, Robert. La Vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet, catalogue raisonné. Peintures, 1866-1877, dessins, sculptures. Paris, 1978.

1987

  • Mainardi, Patricia. Art and Politics of the Second Empire. London and New Haven, 1987.

1992

  • Chu, Petra Ten Doesschate. Letters of Gustave Courbet. Chicago and London, 1992.

2000

  • Eitner, Lorenz. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 102-105.