Gustave Courbet. Georges Riat
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Название: Gustave Courbet
Автор: Georges Riat
Издательство: Parkstone International Publishing
Жанр: Иностранные языки
Серия: Temporis
isbn: 978-1-78042-990-8, 978-1-78310-765-0
isbn:
Géricault, who died prematurely in 1824 at the age of thirty-three, was in fact claimed erroneously by the Romantics. If he had lived, he would have founded Realism, which was present in the embryonic state in his work. It is well known that he was fascinated with reality. At the Louvre, his preferences went to the realist masters such as Caravaggio and Salvator Rosa, whom he copied ardently, and from whom he borrowed those dark backgrounds that have been called “Bolognese cooking.” Courbet moreover always claimed him as one of his masters. The many paintings of the hunt and of races and the “portraits” of horses made by Courbet show just how much he learned from this teacher, and to what extent their tastes were similar.
17. Woman in White Stockings, c. 1861.
Oil on canvas, 65 × 81 cm.
The Barnes Foundation, Merion.
18. Portrait of Juliette Courbet, 1844.
Oil on canvas, 77.5 × 62 cm.
Petit Palais – Musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris, Paris.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that the landscape artists of the school of 1830, even Corot, began almost unanimously to turn in the direction of Realism. Just when Courbet was starting his ascension, however, their early successes were waning. It took a good deal of pressure when the attempt was made to enlist these painters among the Romantics. During this time which led up to the Revolution of 1848, they were still under the realist influence of the English and Dutch landscape artists, however the time was not far off when they would evolve towards subjectivism, which was a form of Romanticism.
In spite of his yearly trips back to Franche-Comté, his regular patronage of the Andler-Keller, and, occasionally, the café Momus, could have been harmful to Courbet. Fortunately, once spring arrived, the jolly band took up the habit of going out to the country now and then for recreation, and so he was able to get back in touch with nature. They went to the Marnes woods, where, as Delvau phrased it, “the hazel trees and the fricassees of la Mère Pihan are in flower”, or to the Fleury woods, “where the coral bells and the cutlets of le Père Bazin are growing” and to the Plessis-Piquet pond “full of reeds and where Père Cense’s ducks swim around.” The cabaret run by Père Cense was their favourite.
In the year of 1849, Courbet went several times to Louveciennes, near the former residence of Madame Du Barry. This was a charming village on the edge of the forest of Marly, not far from Vaucresson, Garches, la Celle-Saint-Cloud, and l’Etang-la-Ville, which had exquisite paths shaded by centuries-old oaks and beech trees to tempt the rambler. There he would call upon another of his compatriots in his quiet abode, Francis Wey, who had been born in Besançon in 1812.
They had met in the winter of 1848, as Wey himself tells it in his Mémoires inédits; “One afternoon, near the foot of the rue de Seine, I met Monsieur Champfleury, and, as we were gabbing on the pavement, he mentioned a young, enormously talented painter, as yet entirely unknown, and who, being a native of my Franche-Comté, would be worthy of a visit.” They decided to do so at once and went to the rue Mazarine, crossed the Place de l’École de Médecine, and went up to the studio. There they saw coming towards them, “a tall young man with beautiful eyes, but very thin, pale, sallow, bony, lanky […]. He nodded at me, without saying a word,” wrote Francis Wey, “then went back to his stool in front of a canvas which I saw as I came up behind him. I don’t remember ever having been so dazzled. The painting before me, treated with a rustic nonchalance, like the subject, showed a masterful insouciance, a controlled fire; the dark tones of the painting, the poetry of the execution were like no known style.” Full of enthusiasm, Wey exclaimed, “With such a rare and marvellous gift, how is it that you are not already famous? No one has ever painted like that!”
“Pardié,” replied the artist with a very countrified Franche-Comté accent, “I paint like God!”
19. Man with a Leather Belt, Portrait of the Artist, 1845–1846.
Oil on canvas, 100 × 82 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
20. Portrait of Alfred Bruyas, known as Painting Solution, 1853.
Oil on canvas, 92 × 74 cm.
Musée Fabre, Montpellier.
Francis Wey couldn’t help being taken aback by this placid statement, and the rest of the conversation simply increased his astonishment. Courbet struck him as, “quite odd, as if rebelling… against most every theory, and steeped in a wilful ignorance, calculated to create an effect.” He railed against the masters, against pupils who subjected themselves before them like slaves, and declared that it was high time to change all that. But the writer did not criticise him for these opinions so unlike his own, because of the “evidence of his extraordinary worth” spread before him, among which were Man with a Pipe and the future success at the Salon of 1849, as well as After Dinner at Ornans, which had caught his eye as soon as he entered.
That Salon of 1849 was highly important in the history of art since the exhibiting artists were allowed to elect the jury themselves. The experiment was enormously successful, if one judges by the results; Courbet was awarded the second-place medal. He had submitted seven works, including landscapes, portraits, and a genre scene, all of which were accepted.
The great success went to the After Dinner at Ornans. The scene takes place in the Courbet kitchen, near the immense fireplace, on a dark afternoon, when all the objects are bathed in chiaroscuro. The meal has just finished and the table is still covered with the remains. The musician Promayet is standing, playing the violin; Courbet is listening absently; his father, with a glass in his hand, is asleep, and Adolphe Marlet carefully takes an ember from the fireplace to light his pipe. The overall impression is rustic, calm, serene, restful; the heads are all excellent portraits and everything, even down to the big bulldog asleep under a chair, shows how Courbet was able to render his observations with fluidity and truth. The After Dinner at Ornans is one of the great masterpieces of the nineteenth century.
Courbet was much talked about in the newspapers and magazines. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, F. de Lagenevais criticised him for having painted a genre scene on a five-foot canvas. In his view, using life-size proportions was wrong; one should look at life through the small end of the glass, and furthermore, make it poetic. As for Champfleury, he sounded an epic note; “Courbet has taken the Salon by storm with nine paintings. Yesterday, no one knew his name; today it on everyone’s lips. Such a sudden success has not been seen in ages.” Concerning the After Dinner at Ornans, “this painting could be boldly hung in the Flemish museums, amid the great crowds of burgomasters by Van der Helst, and it would hold its own… Courbet, before long, will be one of our greatest artists.”
It was claimed that this work had been painted with litharge on the background, which was fading away. It should be recognised that the subject called for this penumbra, since the scene is set in the late afternoon, perhaps at twilight, after the hunt. In a letter to Francis Wey of 28 November 1849, Courbet even referred to this painting as the Soiree à Ornans (Evening at Ornans). It is undeniable that it looked dark; but this is true of all the paintings of this period, in particular СКАЧАТЬ