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Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) A French painter, Courbet
was born at Ornans (Doubs). He went to Paris in 1839, and worked at
the studio of Steuben and Hesse, but soon afterwards, began to work
out his own way by the study of Spanish, Flemish and French painters.
Two of his earlier works were rejected by the jury of the Salon, but
the younger school of critics, the neo-romantics and realists, loudly
sang the praises of Courbet, who by 1849 began to be famous after producing
a number of paintings, and the Salon of 1850 found him triumphant through
a number of successful works. Though Courbet's realistic work is not
devoid of importance, it is as a landscape and sea painter that he will
be most honoured by posterity. Sometimes, it must be owned, his realism
is rather coarse and brutal, but when he paints the forests of Franche-Comté,
and works such as the 'Stag-Fight', he is inimitable. |
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