Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Since this week's episodes on Peter Krapotkim brought
Speaker 1: up the Paris Commune, we've picked today's classic with that
Speaker 1: as a connecting point. We are talking about French artist
Speaker 1: Gustav Kobe. At the start of this episode, we talk
Speaker 1: about whether I had watched What We Do in the Shadows,
Speaker 1: and I can now update my answer to yes, I
Speaker 1: have watched all of it.
Speaker 2: Oh so good.
Speaker 1: This originally came out July twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1: Tracy, I don't know why I've never asked you this before.
Speaker 1: Do you watch what we Do in the Shadows? I
Speaker 1: intend to watch what we Do in the Shadows. There's
Speaker 1: just too much. There's too much stuff to watch right now,
Speaker 1: there is way too much. I won't shade anybody or
Speaker 1: for not keeping up with something, because who can. I'm
Speaker 1: scared of the person that keeps up with everything. But
Speaker 1: the opening credits of What We Do in the Shadows
Speaker 1: has a series of amazing spoofs of famous and not
Speaker 1: so famous pieces of art, with the characters from the
Speaker 1: show painted into them as though they have been around
Speaker 1: for hundreds and hundreds of years because they are vampires.
Speaker 1: Almost every piece of art we'll talk about some variations,
Speaker 1: is actually based on an existing piece of art.
Speaker 2: Art art art.
Speaker 1: It's such good stuff. Two of those pieces are based
Speaker 1: on the work of Gustav Corpe, and I really have
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about him anyway, and that was a
Speaker 1: good entree because I love that show. It is just
Speaker 1: starting its fourth season. I think as we publish this episode,
Speaker 1: it should be out already, and it's so fun. Obviously
Speaker 1: not for all ages. It's a very grown up show
Speaker 1: with adult themes. Similarly, this episode, I will warn you
Speaker 1: at one point we are going to talk about a
Speaker 1: painting that is pretty graphic and explicit. If you have
Speaker 1: younger art historians or art enthusiasts with you, I mean,
Speaker 1: you might want to preview it just for safety. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you feel about it. Everybody's got a
Speaker 1: different threshold. But Corbet was iconic even in his own lifetime.
Speaker 1: He flew in the face of artistic convention. He turned
Speaker 1: down awards, he ushered in a new movement of realism
Speaker 1: in France. He was kind of like the bad boy
Speaker 1: of mid nineteenth century Paris art scene, and he also
Speaker 1: became embroiled in the country's political turmoil. So that is
Speaker 1: who we are talking about today. Jean Desire Gustave Courbet
Speaker 1: was born on June tenth, eighteen nineteen, in the small
Speaker 1: town of Arnan, France. This is in the east of France,
Speaker 1: not far from the border with Switzerland. His parents Reggie
Speaker 1: and Sylvie udou Corbet, and Reggie is sometimes described as
Speaker 1: a farmer, but to be clear, he was a very
Speaker 1: successful farmer. This wasn't like a small family farm. He
Speaker 1: wasn't doing farm work on somebody else's farm. He had
Speaker 1: a large scale, multi property commercial farm that included some
Speaker 1: really lucrative vineyards. Gustave also had three younger sisters, Zoe, Zelli,
Speaker 1: and Juliet, and these daughters appeared in a lot of
Speaker 1: their brother's paintings. Yeah, he liked to paint his friends
Speaker 1: and family in paintings, as Phillis himself, which we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: After his early schooling, Gustave enrolled at the College Royale
Speaker 1: and then attended a fine art school in Besenzon. His
Speaker 1: proclivity toward becoming an artist wasn't really in line with
Speaker 1: what his parents had in mind for him. They wanted
Speaker 1: him to pursue a career in law. So when he
Speaker 1: was in his early twenties the actual year this happened
Speaker 1: varies by source, but they sent him to Paris to
Speaker 1: study law.
Speaker 2: He did not do that. Uh.
Speaker 1: He is said to have been really very very close
Speaker 1: to this family and to have truly loved his parents.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a lot about his letters home to his
Speaker 1: parents and his family, but he really just did not
Speaker 1: see any path for himself in life but art. So
Speaker 1: when he got to Paris, he did not enroll in
Speaker 1: law school, unsurprising based on what Holly just said, but
Speaker 1: he also didn't enroll in art school, though. He went
Speaker 1: to the Louver and studied the art there and also
Speaker 1: made contact with artists who lived in the city so
Speaker 1: we could take private lessons in some cases ask them
Speaker 1: for advice. In particular, he studied with romantic painter Baron
Speaker 1: Charles von Steuben and finally confessed all of this to
Speaker 1: his father. He said he could not be a lawyar.
Speaker 1: He only wanted to be an artist. His father's response
Speaker 1: was surprising and incredibly supportive. He wrote to his son, quote,
Speaker 1: if anyone gives up, it will be you, not me.
Speaker 1: He is short as that he would support his ambitions
Speaker 1: both emotionally and financially, and that he would sell off
Speaker 1: everything he had if it came to that. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's what he was expecting of his father. So Courbet,
Speaker 1: with his father's blessing, at this point, started pursuing an
Speaker 1: art career. In earnest he wrote to his parents, quote,
Speaker 1: within five years, I must have a reputation in Paris.
Speaker 2: But he still did.
Speaker 1: Not enroll at any formal school. Instead, he was largely
Speaker 1: self taught and his development was based largely on copying
Speaker 1: works of famous artists, something a lot of artists did
Speaker 1: and still do to gain technical skills and form their
Speaker 1: own style. He also, as we said, took some private lessons,
Speaker 1: and he started submitting his original works to the Academy
Speaker 1: de Bouzare annual Salon exhibit, and in eighteen forty four,
Speaker 1: just a few years into this effort, one of his
Speaker 1: paintings was accepted. That painting was Courbet with a black
Speaker 1: Dog or self portrait with a black Dog. This is
Speaker 1: not a clue portrait, but a full view of the
Speaker 1: subject that, of course is Korbe himself. Obviously, he's seated
Speaker 1: with his entire body included.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Because Corbe appears to be sitting on the ground with
Speaker 1: an English spaniel standing partially on his lap. But the
Speaker 1: point of view of the viewer is even lower down
Speaker 1: than the subject close to the ground, so Kurbe appears
Speaker 1: to be looking down. He has on a hat that
Speaker 1: has his upper face and shadow, and a drapy coat
Speaker 1: that's flipped open at his leg to reveal a yellow lining.
Speaker 1: Corbe wrote to his family of the acceptance of this painting,
Speaker 1: saying quote, I have been admitted to the exhibition and
Speaker 1: am highly delighted. It is not the picture I should
Speaker 1: have preferred them to take, but it makes no matter.
Speaker 1: They did me the honor of hanging me well in
Speaker 1: the exhibition, and that is some compensation. The following year,
Speaker 1: eighteen forty five, Corbe, spurred on by his success, submitted
Speaker 1: five works for consideration for the salon, but only one
Speaker 1: small one was accepted. That's Le Guiterrero, and it features
Speaker 1: a man in an almost reverse image of the black
Speaker 1: dog portrait. From the previous year. We just described once
Speaker 1: again seated on the ground, but this time no dog
Speaker 1: in his lap. He's cradling a guitar. This is a
Speaker 1: very romantic image, hearkening to an earlier time period, and
Speaker 1: although it's not categorized as a self portrait, Corbe pretty
Speaker 1: obviously used himself as a model. Corbet continued to submit
Speaker 1: pieces for the Salon in the years after this, but
Speaker 1: his success rate kind of dropped off and was pretty low,
Speaker 1: but he remained undaunted. He was a very confident person.
Speaker 1: That's probably a little easier when you know you have
Speaker 1: financial backing, and he continued to paint, and he continued
Speaker 1: to envision and plan his place in the art world.
Speaker 1: Even in these early years of his career, Gustave was
Speaker 1: really shrewd about crafting his image with the public and
Speaker 1: with the art community. So he had come from a
Speaker 1: wealthy family and he received a good education. Because he
Speaker 1: came from the country, Parisians often assumed he was just
Speaker 1: an uneducated peasant. He was totally happy to let people
Speaker 1: do that because he knew it added to his mystique
Speaker 1: as a painter. He saw every opportunity to build his
Speaker 1: life story in a way that would increase interest in
Speaker 1: his work. We'll talk about one later on that is
Speaker 1: a little mind blowing to me. One of the paintings
Speaker 1: that Corbet worked on starting in the eighteen forties was
Speaker 1: one called The Wounded Man. This was another image of
Speaker 1: the artist himself, this time in the romantic role of
Speaker 1: a man reclining with his eyes closed having suffered an injury,
Speaker 1: presumably from a sword. This is a painting that is
Speaker 1: often listed as having started in the eighteen forties and
Speaker 1: being finished in the eighteen fifties. He didn't normally take
Speaker 1: that long to make a painting, but it wasn't considered
Speaker 1: finished until then because Korbe altered it significantly. At one point,
Speaker 1: the hero in the image had been accompanied by a
Speaker 1: woman leaning over his shoulder. Was it is believed, based
Speaker 1: on Virginie Binet, who modeled for a lot of paintings
Speaker 1: for Corbe during a roughly ten year long romantic relationship.
Speaker 1: The two of them were not married, but they lived
Speaker 1: together as a couple. To all outward appearances, they were
Speaker 1: as committed as a married couple. They had a son
Speaker 1: together named Desiree Alfred Emil, but in the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: Virginie moved away from Paris when she and Corbe broke up,
Speaker 1: and she took their child with her, and it seems
Speaker 1: that she and Corbet had no contact after the breakup,
Speaker 1: and Corbet had then painted her out of the Wounded Man,
Speaker 1: and he placed a sword in her place in the painting.
Speaker 1: If you look at it, it does look a little weird.
Speaker 1: It's not bad, it's just a strange. It doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like that was part of the original composition. He did
Speaker 1: not after this have any long term serious relationships, although
Speaker 1: there were a lot of women in his life. He
Speaker 1: kind of just enjoyed playing the field. It seems he
Speaker 1: wrote to a friend of his relationships with women, quote,
Speaker 1: I am as inclined to get married as I am
Speaker 1: to hang myself. Corbe's relationship with the Salon waxed and
Speaker 1: waned in the late eighteen forties. He went from that
Speaker 1: elation of having felt that his work was well placed
Speaker 1: and that he was.
Speaker 2: Just getting started.
Speaker 1: He went from that to a long series of setbacks
Speaker 1: and feeling as though he would never again gain recognition.
Speaker 1: Eighteen forty seven was especially rough for him. He submitted
Speaker 1: three paintings, and all three were rejected. So we've been
Speaker 1: talking about the Salon and submitting every year. And if
Speaker 1: you're wondering why didn't he just show his art somewhere else,
Speaker 1: there really wasn't another avenue available at this time in Paris.
Speaker 1: The Salon was the art show of the year, and
Speaker 1: it was the place where patrons went to purchase art
Speaker 1: and develop relationships with artists, so they would have ongoing
Speaker 1: patronages in some place. Corbet had written of it to
Speaker 1: his family, quote, I must exhibit to make myself known,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately that is the only exhibition in past years
Speaker 1: when I had not thoroughly mastered my own style and
Speaker 1: was still painting to a certain extent. In theirs they
Speaker 1: accepted my work, but now that I am myself, there
Speaker 1: is no hope for me. Other now famous artists were
Speaker 1: similarly despondent at the way the Salon Jury was running things.
Speaker 1: Several had even met to brainstorm how they might establish
Speaker 1: a new independent Salon, and that included people like de
Speaker 1: la Croix and Rousseau. In eighteen forty eight, King Louis
Speaker 1: Philippe of France was forced to abdicate, and later that
Speaker 1: year Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became the first president of the
Speaker 1: Second French Republic. Of course, this was a huge change
Speaker 1: for the country, but for Gustave Courbet and other artists
Speaker 1: resulted in a very significant shift in how the salon
Speaker 1: was churied and had less rigid requirements for subject matter
Speaker 1: and style. At the eighteen forty exhibition he had ten
Speaker 1: paintings accepted for showing a lot of his paintings during
Speaker 1: this time reflected the change in France's shifting sociopolitical climate.
Speaker 1: At a time when voting rights were expanding for men anyway,
Speaker 1: and the right to work was also adopted as a
Speaker 1: governmental reform, Corbet was painting people at work in various trades.
Speaker 1: He also had the very unique insight, or possibly conceit,
Speaker 1: to see that he was the face of a huge
Speaker 1: change in art. He wrote to his family quote, I'm
Speaker 1: about to make it any time now, for I am
Speaker 1: surrounded by people who are very influential in the newspapers
Speaker 1: and the arts, and who are very excited about my painting. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we are about to form a new school of which
Speaker 1: I will be the representative in the field of painting.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we will talk about Gustav Corbet's shift
Speaker 1: to painting landscapes and pastorals and how his representation of
Speaker 1: the common man became so important in art history. First,
Speaker 1: we will pause for a sponsor break. So at this
Speaker 1: point Corbet had been in Paris for roughly a decade
Speaker 1: trying to make a name for himself. He had shifted
Speaker 1: from those romantic portraits we talked about to doing some
Speaker 1: more different types of art, and although he had his
Speaker 1: father's financial support and then the support of an art
Speaker 1: collector benefactor named Alfred Bruia, no one could argue that
Speaker 1: he had been idle during those ten years. He had
Speaker 1: finally earned a gold medal in the Paris Salon, and
Speaker 1: that meant that he didn't have to submit his work
Speaker 1: to Salon juries for exhibition going forward. So he took
Speaker 1: a little pause and he went home to Ornand to
Speaker 1: spend time with his family. And this break from life
Speaker 1: in the city really proved to be exactly what the
Speaker 1: artist needed, and being back in the countryside inspired Corbe
Speaker 1: in a whole new way. Two of Corbet's most famous
Speaker 1: paintings were inspired by this at home. The first was
Speaker 1: titled Le Cassieurs de Pierre or the stone Breakers. As
Speaker 1: its title suggests, this is an image of an older
Speaker 1: man breaking stones and a younger man carrying a basket
Speaker 1: of broken pieces along the side of the road. There's
Speaker 1: an empty, dark landscape behind them. This is an interesting
Speaker 1: image because not only did it come to be seen
Speaker 1: as a clear example of Corbe's desire to put realism
Speaker 1: front and center, it also shows everyday working people in
Speaker 1: vivid detail without romanticizing their lives. Was eventually recognized as
Speaker 1: raising questions about France's socioeconomic structure. And that last bit
Speaker 1: is especially interesting because while most art historians today would
Speaker 1: credit Corbe with being very deliberate about making a social statement,
Speaker 1: and Corbet himself later claimed that that was all intentional, Uh,
Speaker 1: there have definitely been some write ups about this work
Speaker 1: that suggests that it might have been a little bit
Speaker 1: less calculated. Corbe he had seen a man named Gagie,
Speaker 1: who is a road mender working as the artist, passed
Speaker 1: by him in a carriage, and he had written to
Speaker 1: a friend about it.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: Here is an old man of seventy bending over his
Speaker 1: work with his hammer raised, his body burned by the sun,
Speaker 1: his face shaded with a wide straw hat, His coarse,
Speaker 1: stiff breeches are all patched, and his heels are showing
Speaker 1: through his stockings, which once were white in his broken
Speaker 1: old wooden shoes. Near him is a young man, his
Speaker 1: skin burned brown. His filthy, ragged shirt shows his side
Speaker 1: and his arms alas in such low life, this is
Speaker 1: the beginning and the end. Rarely can one find so
Speaker 1: complete an expression of poverty and wretchedness. Corbet then invited
Speaker 1: Gagie to his studio to sit for him for the
Speaker 1: painting of the Stonebreakers. The second famous work that was
Speaker 1: inspired by that trip to or Not was a burial
Speaker 1: at or Not, which he painted in eighteen fifty. This
Speaker 1: painting massive three hundred and fifteen centimeters by six hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty centimeters or twenty one feet by ten feet.
Speaker 1: It depicts his great uncle's funeral. There are more than
Speaker 1: forty people in this composition, which is very dark and
Speaker 1: includes Mourner's clergy and family. They're all gathered around an
Speaker 1: open grave. He showed this at the eighteen fifty one Salon,
Speaker 1: much to the chagrin of critics. The large dimensions that
Speaker 1: Korbe had used were normally reserved for romantic subjects. So
Speaker 1: seeing such a stark scene realistically painted on something so
Speaker 1: big I was considered ghosh and in poor taste. Even so,
Speaker 1: some critics understood the importance of this as a moment
Speaker 1: of massive change in art. One write up said that
Speaker 1: Korbe had established himself as an artist quote in the
Speaker 1: manner of a cannon ball which lodges itself.
Speaker 2: In a wall. That's such a great description.
Speaker 1: These two pieces look so classic pieces of art to modernize,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with classicism, but they just look
Speaker 1: like when you look at them, you're like, yes, that
Speaker 1: seems like famous old art.
Speaker 2: It can be difficult, though, to.
Speaker 1: Grasp just how radical they were considered in mid nineteenth
Speaker 1: century France, at a time when the art world was
Speaker 1: very much about showing the beauty of all things. And indeed,
Speaker 1: we said Corbet had studied with a romantic painter, but
Speaker 1: he had shifted gears, and he was painting things that
Speaker 1: most people at the time would not consider beautiful, and
Speaker 1: he was doing it with this very intense detail, in
Speaker 1: what is often described as urgency. These pastorals cemented him
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the art and literature scene of
Speaker 1: France as the major player in the new realism movement.
Speaker 1: So we should level set for just a moment and
Speaker 1: talk about realism and what it means, because it's easy
Speaker 1: to assume it means one thing, when really it's a
Speaker 1: pretty broad term. Realism in terms of art is not
Speaker 1: necessarily about replicating a real world object in faithful accuracy,
Speaker 1: although it can include that. The more important foundation of
Speaker 1: it is depicting real things rather than something fanciful or imagined.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of works of art that can
Speaker 1: be put under this umbrella, going all the way back
Speaker 1: to ancient Greek sculpture, but the term realism didn't really
Speaker 1: come into play as an artistic school of thought until
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, when Korbe was alive, and the realism
Speaker 1: movement that Corbet is associated with was a rejection of
Speaker 1: the Classicism and Romanticism that had been the standard for
Speaker 1: French art for a very long time. He wrote about
Speaker 1: this in a letter in eighteen sixty one in a
Speaker 1: way that makes his feelings on this matter entirely clear,
Speaker 1: writing quote, painting is an essentially concrete art and can
Speaker 1: consist only of the representation of things both real and existing.
Speaker 1: As he came to recognize that his work depicting the
Speaker 1: French countryside had given him a reputee haiti and deeper
Speaker 1: name recognition. Corbe really leaned into it Ornon, where he
Speaker 1: was born, as in the province of Borgeo and Franche Compte,
Speaker 1: which is in the eastern part of France, and it
Speaker 1: became the star of a lot of Corbet's work. When
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon declared himself Emperor Napoleon the Third after staging
Speaker 1: a coup, the atmosphere for art in Paris once again shifted.
Speaker 1: Although Gustave Corbet had already been seen as controversial in
Speaker 1: his work, as the government became more authoritarian and a
Speaker 1: lot more conservative in its taste, his work was perceived
Speaker 1: as being downright confrontational. His painting Young Ladies of the Village,
Speaker 1: which shows three women modeled by his sisters, offering alms
Speaker 1: to a young girl who is herding cows, was critiqued
Speaker 1: as a clumsy affront to social morase. When you look
Speaker 1: at this painting today, you go, oh, that's lovely, but
Speaker 1: people were real mad about it at the time. In
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, Gustav started to work on a massive project,
Speaker 1: and we use massive both literally and figuratively, the canvas
Speaker 1: of the painting, which he completed in six weeks, is
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty one by five hundred ninety eight centimeters.
Speaker 1: That's eleven point eight feet by nineteen point six feet,
Speaker 1: so similar to the dimensions of a burial at Ornan,
Speaker 1: but the subject matter is expansive as well. The painting
Speaker 1: is sometimes called the Artist's Studio or the Painter's Studio,
Speaker 1: but the full title is a Painter's Studio, A real
Speaker 1: allegory summing up seven years of my life as an artist.
Speaker 1: Corbet is at the center of the painting working it's
Speaker 1: painting a landscape of an area near or non Behind
Speaker 1: him is what appears to be an artist's model. It's
Speaker 1: a naked woman with her dress at her feet, but
Speaker 1: he's not painting her or even looking at her. Instead,
Speaker 1: she is closely watching him. There's also a small child
Speaker 1: watching him paint. So these three figures Corbet, the woman
Speaker 1: in the ch child form the central grouping of the image,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the painting's casts of characters are
Speaker 1: separated to the right.
Speaker 2: And the left.
Speaker 1: The group to the left is filled with the sort
Speaker 1: of rural characters that populated much of Corbet's work. There's
Speaker 1: also a representation of the Crucifixion of Christ on the
Speaker 1: left side as well. Close to and kind of just
Speaker 1: behind the left side of the painter's canvas in the
Speaker 1: image as he works. On the right are Corbet's friends
Speaker 1: and patrons, including the writer Charles Baudlare. This painting continues
Speaker 1: to be interpreted and analyzed by art history scholars. In
Speaker 1: mixing allegory and reality, Corbet seems to have laid out
Speaker 1: a puzzle for the viewer to solve, but no one
Speaker 1: seems to agree on what exactly the meaning of the
Speaker 1: piece is. This painting was submitted for the eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: five exhibition in Paris and it was not accepted. After
Speaker 1: having achieved a level of recognition where he had been
Speaker 1: able to place pieces in the salon without jury approval.
Speaker 1: This was just a slap in the face. Napoleon the
Speaker 1: third had directed that only pleasant art be included at
Speaker 1: the salon, and the artist's studio was determined to be
Speaker 1: too demanding of the viewer, and Corbet had eleven pieces
Speaker 1: accepted for the salon, but he just took matters into
Speaker 1: his own hands to get all of his paintings in
Speaker 1: front of the eyes of the public. He rented a
Speaker 1: space near the exposition and set up his own pavilion
Speaker 1: to showcase this huge painting, as well as some other works.
Speaker 1: He called this the Pavilion of Realism. The Pavilion of
Speaker 1: Realism was not a success. Although many of his contemporaries
Speaker 1: and Eugene de la Croix in particular, admired the ambition
Speaker 1: of this effort, it just wasn't well attended. The public
Speaker 1: mostly saw this as a stunt or like a really
Speaker 1: expensive tantrum. Yeah, there's one exchange. I will get it
Speaker 1: wrong because I'm just retelling it. I didn't quote it
Speaker 1: here where there was a person who was like, and
Speaker 1: this is really a lot, like you really think highly
Speaker 1: of yourself, and Corbe wrote back, do you not know
Speaker 1: I'm the most arrogant person in Paris. He was just like,
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is how it is, dude. It's
Speaker 1: all my paintings are nothing. Incidentally, it was during the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, when Corbe's fame was rapidly on the rise,
Speaker 1: that he painted the two paintings that are spoofed in
Speaker 1: the opening of What We Do in the Shadows the
Speaker 1: first in terms of when Corbe painted it, although I
Speaker 1: think it appears second in the opening credits of the
Speaker 1: show is a painting titled Madame auguste Quoke, which was
Speaker 1: a commissioned rendering of Matild de port as ordered by
Speaker 1: her husband. This features a woman in almost full length
Speaker 1: wearing a black pleated gown with a striking green rap.
Speaker 1: The television show created one with the vampire Nadia as
Speaker 1: Madame de Port and in the show's opening there is
Speaker 1: also a matching painting of Nadya's husband Laslow, although Corbe
Speaker 1: did not paint a companion piece to Madame Augustequoque. The
Speaker 1: second Corbe spoof in the TV show's opening credits once
Speaker 1: again features Nadya in a recreation of Corbe's eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: six painting woman in a riding hat. You'll also see
Speaker 1: that sometimes listed as the Horsewoman. This was also a
Speaker 1: portrait commission. Gustav was hired to paint Madame Clement Laurier
Speaker 1: as a wedding gift to the bride from her husband.
Speaker 1: In this case, Corbe did also paint a portrait of
Speaker 1: Monsieur Laurier, but it is not that portrait that's used
Speaker 1: for Laslow in the show. There's a matching portrait made
Speaker 1: that appears to be an original creation to look more
Speaker 1: like a match to the Madame Laurier painting. You can
Speaker 1: see both of Corbe's original portraits at the met if
Speaker 1: you are interested and want to do some sort of
Speaker 1: what we do in the Shadows art crawl, that sounds great.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we'll talk about Corbe's influence on the
Speaker 1: impressionists who followed him and his involvement in politics. But
Speaker 1: first we are going to hear from some of the
Speaker 1: sponsors who keeps Stuffy missed in history class going. Corbet
Speaker 1: went to Germany for a visit in eighteen fifty six,
Speaker 1: and there he made a lot of new connections with
Speaker 1: fellow artists. Whereas France had come to see Corbet at
Speaker 1: this point as a rabble rouser or sometimes even a nuisance,
Speaker 1: for the way that he both ignored the traditions of
Speaker 1: the art scene of the day and thumbed his nose
Speaker 1: at criticism, it seems that the German sensibilities were more
Speaker 1: willing to embrace his realism. He had painted a lot
Speaker 1: of works that featured hunting parties, and those were particularly
Speaker 1: popular in Germany. One of the interesting aspects of Corbet's
Speaker 1: realism is that it wasn't confined to any particular subject matter.
Speaker 1: He painted landscapes, He painted the lower classes at their work.
Speaker 1: He made portraits of himself and other people. He painted
Speaker 1: nude studies of women, quite a lot of them. His
Speaker 1: work in landscapes, though, is often said to have paved
Speaker 1: the way for the Impressionist movement, as he worked to
Speaker 1: capture things like the sky as it was breaking into
Speaker 1: a storm over the sea at the shoreline. He had
Speaker 1: started to bring in the ideas that shaped Impressionism, particularly
Speaker 1: in his use of color and light reflections. Whereas Corbet's
Speaker 1: realism was all about capturing all and any subjects of
Speaker 1: the world, Impressionism would kind of take that to a
Speaker 1: new space, as it showed the world realistically, but with
Speaker 1: a focus on the ways that light and color can
Speaker 1: shift our perceptions of reality. Throughout the eighteen sixties, Gustav
Speaker 1: enjoyed quite a bit of success. He had become the
Speaker 1: figurehead not just for realism but for breaking away from
Speaker 1: the establishment, and that really rebellious spirit, combined with his skill,
Speaker 1: attracted a lot of collectors, and though his relationship with
Speaker 1: the French government under Napoleon the Third wasn't good. He
Speaker 1: was nominated as a recipient of the French Legion of
Speaker 1: Honor in eighteen seventy. Kurbae turned this down, writing quote,
Speaker 1: Honor does not lie in a title or a ribbon.
Speaker 1: It lies in actions and the motives for actions. I
Speaker 1: honor myself by remaining faithful to my life lifelong principles.
Speaker 1: If I portrayed them, I should desert honor to wear
Speaker 1: its mark. Yeah, he was not a fan of Napoleon
Speaker 1: the Third's government. At the end of the Franco German
Speaker 1: War also called the Franco Prussian War, the Paris Commune
Speaker 1: formed as an insurrectionist group in response to dissatisfaction at
Speaker 1: the armistice agreement that France had signed with Germany. Emperor
Speaker 1: Napoleon the Third had entered the war way over confident
Speaker 1: and France had not really been prepared, and in the
Speaker 1: Treaty of Frankfurt, France had had to concede the annexation
Speaker 1: of Alsace and part of Lorentz, as well as the
Speaker 1: payment of five billion francs to cover the expenses of
Speaker 1: the German army's occupation of France. In the briefest of terms,
Speaker 1: this meant that the Paris Commune was against both the
Speaker 1: Army of Versailles and the German Army. There was fear
Speaker 1: that the National Assembly was going to reinstate the monarchy,
Speaker 1: which was opposite of what Parisians who favored the Republic wanted,
Speaker 1: and Corbet aligned with the Commune as it attempted to
Speaker 1: establish its own French government and reject the Third Republic
Speaker 1: and Napoleon the Third. The Commune had been established in
Speaker 1: the middle of March eighteen seventy one, and it was
Speaker 1: suppressed in May, so it didn't last very long, and
Speaker 1: Corbet had left the group early in May before it
Speaker 1: was disbanded because he actually found it too extreme. So
Speaker 1: here in a quote later, he didn't really like aligning
Speaker 1: with anybody, but that association with the Paris Commune really
Speaker 1: hurt him. Krebet had been elected president of the Artists' Federation,
Speaker 1: and in that role it fell to him to re
Speaker 1: establish the National Salon and to reopen the museums which
Speaker 1: had been closed during the war. He made an unusual move, though,
Speaker 1: and instead focused on monuments outside of Paris, the Palace
Speaker 1: at Fontainebleau, which had been occupied by German forces, and
Speaker 1: the porcelain factory at sev. As all of this was
Speaker 1: going on, members of the Paris Commune had decided to
Speaker 1: destroy a military monument in the place ven Dome.
Speaker 2: It was a.
Speaker 1: Column that commemorated Napoleon Bonaparte's military and it was something
Speaker 1: Corbet had spoken of with disdain on many occasions. When
Speaker 1: the Commune destroyed it on May sixteenth, Corbe was believed
Speaker 1: to have spearheaded the move, even though he had left
Speaker 1: the group before that happened. He had circulated a petition
Speaker 1: to take that monument down the year before, in eighteen seventy,
Speaker 1: so there was an official record of him calling for
Speaker 1: its destruction. After the Commune was conclusively defeated by the
Speaker 1: Army of Versailles at the end of May, Corbe was
Speaker 1: arrested in the first week of June and put on
Speaker 1: trial as a political instigator. This trial did not go well.
Speaker 1: The people who actually had destroyed the monument had fled
Speaker 1: the country, although they had insisted that the artist had
Speaker 1: not been involved. Even so, he was found guilty and
Speaker 1: sentenced to six months in prison. There was also a fine,
Speaker 1: although because Corbe had friends who were highly placed in
Speaker 1: the new provisional government.
Speaker 2: Some of that vine was minimal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was in this unique space where he kind
Speaker 1: of disliked every established thing and fought against it. But
Speaker 1: he also had friends in almost every position, you know,
Speaker 1: with any alignment, because a lot of people were buying
Speaker 1: his work and were fans of his. Gustav Corbet was
Speaker 1: sent to prison at Seinte Pelagie, but he fell ill
Speaker 1: and he was transferred to a medical facility near Paris
Speaker 1: to finish his sentence. When that sentence ended and he
Speaker 1: was a free man again, he did not stay in Paris.
Speaker 1: He instead went back to his beloved countryside and family
Speaker 1: in Ornan. He hoped to rest and rebuild his health
Speaker 1: and put the whole thing behind him, but.
Speaker 2: That was not to be.
Speaker 1: But even while incarcerated, he had written letters to his
Speaker 1: family that this whole ordeal had a bright side, which
Speaker 1: is it was only going to drive up interest in
Speaker 1: his work and enable him to raise his prices. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two, Adelfierre, who had helped ensure Corbet's fines
Speaker 1: weren't too steep after his trial, resigned from his presidency
Speaker 1: was put Buonaparte loyalists back in power. They did not
Speaker 1: feel that Corbet had truly paid his debt to society,
Speaker 1: so the French government sued Corbet for the money needed
Speaker 1: to replace the destroyed monument. The trial for this was
Speaker 1: never going to go his way. Corbe was fined five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand francs, and this was an absurd amount of money.
Speaker 1: There was no way he could pay it. By the
Speaker 1: time the judgment was passed down, all of Corbe's assets
Speaker 1: had already been seized, including all of his paintings. Everything
Speaker 1: he owned had been taken by the French government. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have seen different numbers aside from that five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand francs, but it's always many hundreds of thousand frecks.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the absurdly high number of Going Tracy.
Speaker 1: You owe me twelve billion dollars. No, really, it was
Speaker 1: thirteen billion. I mean, it's like it felt that absurd
Speaker 1: to him because he had nothing. In addition to that,
Speaker 1: the government had been watching his family and friends. They
Speaker 1: were all under surveillance, and a number of artists that
Speaker 1: he was associated with finally decided that being associated with
Speaker 1: him was too dangerous and that he needed to be
Speaker 1: barred from future salons and basically excommunicated from the city's
Speaker 1: art circles. One of his friends in the art world
Speaker 1: wrote to another the sad phrase, he must be dead
Speaker 1: to us, so he left the country and headed for Switzerland.
Speaker 1: On July twenty thirty, eighteen seventy three, he left France
Speaker 1: and never returned. Initially, Corbet went to Fleurier, which is
Speaker 1: only about ten kilometers or a little more than six
Speaker 1: miles away from the French border, but Gustav became anxious
Speaker 1: that this was just too close to France, so he
Speaker 1: moved about eighty five kilometers south to Levee la Clemm.
Speaker 1: He didn't stay there either, but also didn't travel very
Speaker 1: far before putting down roots.
Speaker 2: He went just about.
Speaker 1: Two kilometers more south to Latour de Pills and purchased
Speaker 1: an inn, which he named Bonport or safe Harbor. Because
Speaker 1: he had left Paris, he actually missed out on a
Speaker 1: move by some of his fellow artists, which no doubt
Speaker 1: would have pleased him. In eighteen seventy four, Monette, Pizarro,
Speaker 1: Sesan and renoirre tired of the Paris Salon, offering the
Speaker 1: only chance at having their work publicly seen put together
Speaker 1: their own show, and that is actually the art exhibition
Speaker 1: that the term Impressionists was coined at. Many art historians
Speaker 1: credit Corbe's daring with helping to kickstart the Impressionists. Some
Speaker 1: have said it would have happened anyway, but it happened
Speaker 1: about ten years earlier than it would have had Corbet
Speaker 1: not been involved. In his final years, Corbe drank heavily
Speaker 1: and neglected his health. The stress of the trials and
Speaker 1: his incarceration, and having so many of his colleagues turn
Speaker 1: their back on him that all took a toll. He
Speaker 1: had hoped that he might be granted an amnesty and
Speaker 1: be able to return to France, but instead the French
Speaker 1: government directed him to pay the cost of the monument
Speaker 1: in ten thousand frank installments going You'll Owe Us Forever.
Speaker 1: They also auctioned off all of his art that they
Speaker 1: had seized. Corbet died on December thirty first, eighteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: He was only fifty eight, and the cause of his
Speaker 1: death was listed as a DMA that was likely the
Speaker 1: result of drinking. Although he had never gotten to return
Speaker 1: to France in life. In nineteen nineteen, his remains were
Speaker 1: moved from Switzerland to Ornand, where he was reinterred in
Speaker 1: the same cemetery featured in his painting A Burial at Ornand.
Speaker 1: A nineteen twelve collection of Corbet's work with commentary by
Speaker 1: Leons Benedictte opens with the line quote Corbet was one
Speaker 1: of Courbet's favorite subjects. It has often been thrown up
Speaker 1: against him by men who forget that an artist has
Speaker 1: great difficulty in finding a model as convenient or as
Speaker 1: well studied as himself. But it was said the painter,
Speaker 1: who delighted in making so many of his contemporaries life
Speaker 1: uglier than they were, was much nicer and more generous
Speaker 1: when it came to his own face. The artist has
Speaker 1: no excuse save the masterpieces that his rather exclusive indulgence
Speaker 1: has given us. We've only talked about a couple of
Speaker 1: the self portraits here. It's worth checking out more of them.
Speaker 1: The one that's going to be on our social media
Speaker 1: is not one of the ones that we have mentioned here,
Speaker 1: but is striking. But really, Gustav Corbet gave the art
Speaker 1: world an awful lot more than beautiful paintings. His rebellious spirit,
Speaker 1: which was part of his art really before he even
Speaker 1: became politically active. Led to a number of innovations and
Speaker 1: moves that scandalized the art world at the time, but
Speaker 1: became very commonplace as later generations of artists adopted them.
Speaker 1: We already talked about his embrace of realism at a
Speaker 1: time when Romanticism was the standard. His provocative paintings and
Speaker 1: behaviors were not accidental. He had written early in his
Speaker 1: career that he had a goal quote to change the
Speaker 1: public's taste and way of seeing. No small task, for
Speaker 1: it means no more and no less than overturning what
Speaker 1: exists and replacing it. In addition to that, Corbet's nudes
Speaker 1: threw the Paris art establishment into a tizzy. He was
Speaker 1: certainly not at all the first person to paint nude figures.
Speaker 1: Historical figures in art were completely acceptable at the time
Speaker 1: as nudes, even in very sensual scenarios, But his realism
Speaker 1: was very real. It left nothing to the imagination. It
Speaker 1: wasn't romanticized. One of his most well known examples of
Speaker 1: this is a painting titled Origin of the World or
Speaker 1: Laurie Jeanne du Monde, which is a view of a
Speaker 1: woman's body lying on a bed in which her genitalia
Speaker 1: are the focus of the work. When he painted this
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six, it was completely shocking. Was a
Speaker 1: private commission and it didn't go on public display, but
Speaker 1: art critics certainly saw it and they weighed in on it.
Speaker 1: There's debate around it the continues until this day. The
Speaker 1: Origin of the World passed from private collector to private
Speaker 1: collector over the years. It was once even owned by
Speaker 1: Jacquela Khan, but it didn't go on public display until
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight when it was shown at the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Museum in New York. Today it's part of the collection
Speaker 1: of the Musee Dorse and it still elicits really strong responses.
Speaker 1: But it and similar work set the stage for other
Speaker 1: artists to show human bodies without the limitations that the
Speaker 1: art established had placed on them before this work. There's
Speaker 1: also some fun gossip about who the model for this
Speaker 1: may have been that Holly's going to talk about on Friday.
Speaker 2: Yes, that gossip is good.
Speaker 1: This is interesting because it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: was considered pornographic when he painted it in eighteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: There are still people today who will say that straight
Speaker 1: up pornography and not art. It's very controversial, so he
Speaker 1: sure did stay relevant in that regard, even in less
Speaker 1: explicit paintings. Corbet's detractors found him to be scandalous. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two, at a time when the painter's life
Speaker 1: and country were in upheaval, he painted a work called
Speaker 1: Sleep and This features two naked women asleep in each
Speaker 1: other's arms. It was considered so controversial when it was
Speaker 1: shown publicly that there was actually a police report filed
Speaker 1: about it for indecency. As Corbet was already on the
Speaker 1: outs with the French government at this time, that report
Speaker 1: went into a file that was being kept to document
Speaker 1: his life on a more technical note, rather than relating
Speaker 1: to his subject matter. Corbe was also one of the
Speaker 1: first artists to use a palette knife in his fingers
Speaker 1: to apply the paint to the canvas. Palette knives were
Speaker 1: strictly considered mixing.
Speaker 2: Tools at the time.
Speaker 1: This was the fine art equivalent of applying wall paint
Speaker 1: with a ststick. For Corbet, though, it was a different
Speaker 1: way to control his medium. Yeah, and it was one
Speaker 1: of those things. I mean, obviously it worked, and he
Speaker 1: was very good at it. I think it was Sizen
Speaker 1: that said, like his talent was justless and it was
Speaker 1: kind of a reflection of him being able to do
Speaker 1: completely new things in ways that resulted in just beautiful work. Today,
Speaker 1: Corbe's work is recognized for its important in the development
Speaker 1: of Western art. There are frequent exhibitions mounted featuring most
Speaker 1: of his works. Two canvases, though are generally excluded. Both
Speaker 1: Burial at Ornand and the Painter's Studio are very large,
Speaker 1: which makes shipping difficult, but they are also considered to
Speaker 1: be too delicate to be shipped, so even though they
Speaker 1: are considered some of his most important works, both remain
Speaker 1: in the permanent collection of the Musee d'arcail and they
Speaker 1: cannot be loaned out. Another important Corbe painting that you
Speaker 1: will not see in any collected exhibit today is The
Speaker 1: Stone Breakers because it was unfortunately destroyed during the bombing
Speaker 1: of Dresden in World War II. Eight years before his death,
Speaker 1: Corbe was embroiled in France's very volatile political shifts. He
Speaker 1: described himself and his ideology in a single succinct passage,
Speaker 1: and a letter to a friend seems the right place
Speaker 1: to wrap up his story. He wrote, quote I am
Speaker 1: fifty years old, and I have always lived in freedom.
Speaker 1: Let me end my life free. When I am dead,
Speaker 1: let this be said of me. He belonged to no school,
Speaker 1: to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least
Speaker 1: of all, to any regime except the regime of liberty.
Speaker 3: Gustavecorbet, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to send us a note, our email
Speaker 1: addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can
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