Der steinklopfer gustave courbet biography

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes, and still lifes. Courbet, a socialist, was active in the political developments of France. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.

1849 painting by Gustave Courbet

The Stone Breakers (French: Les Casseurs de pierres), also known as Stonebreakers, was an 1849 oil painting on canvas by the French painter Gustave Courbet. Now destroyed, the image remains an often-cited example of the artistic movement Realism.

The painting was exhibited at the 1850 Paris Salon where it was criticized by for its depiction of a subject that was not considered proper for high art. Some critics disliked Courbet's application of very thick paint and the poor lighting in the image. Conversely, social theoristPierre-Joseph Proudhon praised the work and saw it as a successful socialist painting. He called the composition "a masterpiece in its genre". By 1915, it was considered to be a very "important work".

Courbet produced two versions of the painting. The version displayed at the 1850 Paris Salon was in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. At the time of its acquisition by the museum, the painting was referred to as "Courbet's monumental masterpiece". In February 1945, Dresden was bombed by the Allies of World War II. The Germans decided to relocate the painting but it was subsequently destroyed during a bombing raid while being relocated by truck to a safe storage. The second version, a reversed image, survived the war and is in the Oskar Reinhart Collection in Winterthur.

History

Gustave Courbet created works of art in the genre of realism and he described it as "my way of seeing". In 1855 Courbet claimed that the title of realist "was thrust upon him". Despite Courbet's statement he is given credit for coming up with the term realism. To demonstrate his style of painting in the realism genre, Courbet once claimed that he could not paint an angel because he never saw one. However in his work, The Stone Breakers, Courbet controlled the subject matter, giving the subject symbolic and intellect