Gustave Courbet was a famous French painter associated with the French Realist art movement. He is best known for his realist scenes of everyday life and for his thoughts on society and politics. Famous Gustave Courbet artworks include “The Stone Breakers”, “A Burial At Ornans”, “Le Sommeil (Sleep)”, “Proudhon and His Children”, “Young Ladies Beside the Seine (Summer)”, “The Meeting (“Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet”)”, “Cliffs at Etretat, After the Storm”, “Portrait of Baudelaire”, “Spanish Woman”, and “The Painter’s Studio: A real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life (L’Atelier du peintre)”.
Mini biography: Born Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet on the 10th of June, 1819 in Ornans, Doubs, France. His mother was Sylvie Oudot and his father Régis Courbet. The artist died on the 31st of December, 1877 in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland at the age of 58. Courbet is buried at the Ornans Cemetery in Saint-Claude, Departement du Jura, Franche-Comté, France.
List of Famous Gustave Courbet Art Quotes
I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: ‘He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.’ Gustave Courbet
The title of Realist was thrust upon me just as the title of Romantic was imposed upon the men of 1830. Titles have never given a true idea of things: if it were otherwise, the works would be unnecessary. Gustave Courbet
The sea! The sea!.. ..in her growling fury, she reminds me of a of the caged monster who can devour me. Gustave Courbet
There’s nothing harder in the world than making art, particularly when no one understands it. Women want portraits without shadow, men want to be dressed up in their Sunday best; there’s no way out. To earn money with things like that, you’d be better of walking on a treadmill. At least then you would not be abdicating your convictions. Gustave Courbet
In our civilized society I must lead the life of a savage. I must free myself even from governments. My sympathies lies with the people; I must go to them directly. I must draw my wisdom from them, and they must give me life. For that reason I have just embarked on the grand, independent and vagabond life of the bohemian. Gustave Courbet
I have studied the art of the ancients and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I no longer wanted to imitate the one than to copy the other; nor, furthermore, was it my intention to attain the trivial goal of “art for art’s sake”. No! I simply wanted to draw forth, from a complete acquaintance with tradition, the reasoned and independent consciousness of my own individuality. Gustave Courbet
An epoch can only be reproduced by its own artists, I mean by the artists who lived in it. I hold the artists of one century basically incapable of reproducing the aspect of a past or future century-in other words, of painting the past or the future. Gustave Courbet
In the coming year I must do a large painting which will definitely get me recognized for what I truly am, for I want all or nothing. All those little paintings are not the only thing that I can do.. .I want to do large-scale painting. One thing is certain, that within five years, I must have a name in Paris; that is what I strive for. It’s hard to get there, I know.. .To move faster I only lack one thing, and that’s money, in order to boldly execute what I have in mind. Gustave Courbet
Art Quotes About Gustave Courbet
I had already recognized who were my true masters. I admired Manet, Courbet and Degas. I hated conventional art – I began to live. Mary Cassatt Quotes
Gustave Courbet Self Portrait Painting
More on Famous French Artist Gustave Courbet
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Related or similar popular artists include: Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Eugene Delacroix, and other Famous French Artists.
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