WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Gustave Courbet 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:06.640 Happy Saturday. Since this week's episodes on Peter Krapotkim brought 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.920 up the Paris Commune, we've picked today's classic with that 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:12.720 as a connecting point. We are talking about French artist 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.640 Gustav Kobe. At the start of this episode, we talk 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.759 about whether I had watched What We Do in the Shadows, 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.800 and I can now update my answer to yes, I 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:23.680 have watched all of it. 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:25.400 Oh so good. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.480 This originally came out July twenty fifth, twenty twenty two. 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:34.800 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:44.639 production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:45.920 Holly Frye. 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:47.280 And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.000 Tracy, I don't know why I've never asked you this before. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:52.400 Do you watch what we Do in the Shadows? I 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.320 intend to watch what we Do in the Shadows. There's 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.640 just too much. There's too much stuff to watch right now, 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.160 there is way too much. I won't shade anybody or 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.080 for not keeping up with something, because who can. I'm 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.280 scared of the person that keeps up with everything. But 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.479 the opening credits of What We Do in the Shadows 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:14.640 has a series of amazing spoofs of famous and not 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.200 so famous pieces of art, with the characters from the 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.880 show painted into them as though they have been around 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.040 for hundreds and hundreds of years because they are vampires. 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.080 Almost every piece of art we'll talk about some variations, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.479 is actually based on an existing piece of art. 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:35.160 Art art art. 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:40.959 It's such good stuff. Two of those pieces are based 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.200 on the work of Gustav Corpe, and I really have 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.560 wanted to talk about him anyway, and that was a 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.840 good entree because I love that show. It is just 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.160 starting its fourth season. I think as we publish this episode, 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.760 it should be out already, and it's so fun. Obviously 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.440 not for all ages. It's a very grown up show 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.800 with adult themes. Similarly, this episode, I will warn you 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:09.400 at one point we are going to talk about a 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.280 painting that is pretty graphic and explicit. If you have 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.000 younger art historians or art enthusiasts with you, I mean, 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.480 you might want to preview it just for safety. I 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:22.079 don't know how you feel about it. Everybody's got a 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:27.240 different threshold. But Corbet was iconic even in his own lifetime. 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.360 He flew in the face of artistic convention. He turned 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.720 down awards, he ushered in a new movement of realism 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.720 in France. He was kind of like the bad boy 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.920 of mid nineteenth century Paris art scene, and he also 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.679 became embroiled in the country's political turmoil. So that is 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.560 who we are talking about today. Jean Desire Gustave Courbet 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.880 was born on June tenth, eighteen nineteen, in the small 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.560 town of Arnan, France. This is in the east of France, 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.720 not far from the border with Switzerland. His parents Reggie 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:05.799 and Sylvie udou Corbet, and Reggie is sometimes described as 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.240 a farmer, but to be clear, he was a very 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.600 successful farmer. This wasn't like a small family farm. He 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.440 wasn't doing farm work on somebody else's farm. He had 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.800 a large scale, multi property commercial farm that included some 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:27.000 really lucrative vineyards. Gustave also had three younger sisters, Zoe, Zelli, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.480 and Juliet, and these daughters appeared in a lot of 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:35.520 their brother's paintings. Yeah, he liked to paint his friends 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.280 and family in paintings, as Phillis himself, which we'll talk about. 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.400 After his early schooling, Gustave enrolled at the College Royale 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.880 and then attended a fine art school in Besenzon. His 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.760 proclivity toward becoming an artist wasn't really in line with 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.040 what his parents had in mind for him. They wanted 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.720 him to pursue a career in law. So when he 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.720 was in his early twenties the actual year this happened 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.560 varies by source, but they sent him to Paris to 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:01.280 study law. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.560 He did not do that. Uh. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.400 He is said to have been really very very close 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.600 to this family and to have truly loved his parents. 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.040 We'll talk a lot about his letters home to his 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.880 parents and his family, but he really just did not 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.320 see any path for himself in life but art. So 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.560 when he got to Paris, he did not enroll in 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.599 law school, unsurprising based on what Holly just said, but 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.520 he also didn't enroll in art school, though. He went 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.080 to the Louver and studied the art there and also 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.680 made contact with artists who lived in the city so 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.200 we could take private lessons in some cases ask them 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.400 for advice. In particular, he studied with romantic painter Baron 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.080 Charles von Steuben and finally confessed all of this to 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.800 his father. He said he could not be a lawyar. 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.800 He only wanted to be an artist. His father's response 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.680 was surprising and incredibly supportive. He wrote to his son, quote, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.359 if anyone gives up, it will be you, not me. 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.080 He is short as that he would support his ambitions 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.120 both emotionally and financially, and that he would sell off 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.120 everything he had if it came to that. I don't 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.479 think that's what he was expecting of his father. So Courbet, 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.480 with his father's blessing, at this point, started pursuing an 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.080 art career. In earnest he wrote to his parents, quote, 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.400 within five years, I must have a reputation in Paris. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:24.039 But he still did. 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.720 Not enroll at any formal school. Instead, he was largely 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.720 self taught and his development was based largely on copying 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.480 works of famous artists, something a lot of artists did 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.360 and still do to gain technical skills and form their 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.600 own style. He also, as we said, took some private lessons, 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.320 and he started submitting his original works to the Academy 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.680 de Bouzare annual Salon exhibit, and in eighteen forty four, 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.520 just a few years into this effort, one of his 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.760 paintings was accepted. That painting was Courbet with a black 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.520 Dog or self portrait with a black Dog. This is 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.000 not a clue portrait, but a full view of the 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.320 subject that, of course is Korbe himself. Obviously, he's seated 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.320 with his entire body included. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:10.159 And it's interesting. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.560 Because Corbe appears to be sitting on the ground with 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.479 an English spaniel standing partially on his lap. But the 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.640 point of view of the viewer is even lower down 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.599 than the subject close to the ground, so Kurbe appears 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.560 to be looking down. He has on a hat that 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.719 has his upper face and shadow, and a drapy coat 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.760 that's flipped open at his leg to reveal a yellow lining. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.960 Corbe wrote to his family of the acceptance of this painting, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.240 saying quote, I have been admitted to the exhibition and 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.360 am highly delighted. It is not the picture I should 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.799 have preferred them to take, but it makes no matter. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.640 They did me the honor of hanging me well in 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:52.320 the exhibition, and that is some compensation. The following year, 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.440 eighteen forty five, Corbe, spurred on by his success, submitted 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.160 five works for consideration for the salon, but only one 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.960 small one was accepted. That's Le Guiterrero, and it features 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.960 a man in an almost reverse image of the black 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.280 dog portrait. From the previous year. We just described once 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.120 again seated on the ground, but this time no dog 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.120 in his lap. He's cradling a guitar. This is a 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.920 very romantic image, hearkening to an earlier time period, and 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.720 although it's not categorized as a self portrait, Corbe pretty 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.960 obviously used himself as a model. Corbet continued to submit 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.280 pieces for the Salon in the years after this, but 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.120 his success rate kind of dropped off and was pretty low, 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.800 but he remained undaunted. He was a very confident person. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.360 That's probably a little easier when you know you have 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.760 financial backing, and he continued to paint, and he continued 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.360 to envision and plan his place in the art world. 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.280 Even in these early years of his career, Gustave was 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.760 really shrewd about crafting his image with the public and 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.560 with the art community. So he had come from a 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.440 wealthy family and he received a good education. Because he 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.440 came from the country, Parisians often assumed he was just 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.440 an uneducated peasant. He was totally happy to let people 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.440 do that because he knew it added to his mystique 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.760 as a painter. He saw every opportunity to build his 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.640 life story in a way that would increase interest in 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.360 his work. We'll talk about one later on that is 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.040 a little mind blowing to me. One of the paintings 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.840 that Corbet worked on starting in the eighteen forties was 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.160 one called The Wounded Man. This was another image of 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.760 the artist himself, this time in the romantic role of 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.800 a man reclining with his eyes closed having suffered an injury, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.480 presumably from a sword. This is a painting that is 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.320 often listed as having started in the eighteen forties and 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.199 being finished in the eighteen fifties. He didn't normally take 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:50.160 that long to make a painting, but it wasn't considered 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:55.120 finished until then because Korbe altered it significantly. At one point, 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:57.800 the hero in the image had been accompanied by a 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.640 woman leaning over his shoulder. Was it is believed, based 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.840 on Virginie Binet, who modeled for a lot of paintings 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.960 for Corbe during a roughly ten year long romantic relationship. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.560 The two of them were not married, but they lived 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.679 together as a couple. To all outward appearances, they were 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.840 as committed as a married couple. They had a son 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.839 together named Desiree Alfred Emil, but in the early nineteen fifties, 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.520 Virginie moved away from Paris when she and Corbe broke up, 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:27.960 and she took their child with her, and it seems 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.920 that she and Corbet had no contact after the breakup, 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:36.000 and Corbet had then painted her out of the Wounded Man, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.560 and he placed a sword in her place in the painting. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.480 If you look at it, it does look a little weird. 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.800 It's not bad, it's just a strange. It doesn't feel 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.640 like that was part of the original composition. He did 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.280 not after this have any long term serious relationships, although 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.240 there were a lot of women in his life. He 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.680 kind of just enjoyed playing the field. It seems he 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.680 wrote to a friend of his relationships with women, quote, 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:04.960 I am as inclined to get married as I am 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.480 to hang myself. Corbe's relationship with the Salon waxed and 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.760 waned in the late eighteen forties. He went from that 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.200 elation of having felt that his work was well placed 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:17.000 and that he was. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:18.080 Just getting started. 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.319 He went from that to a long series of setbacks 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.920 and feeling as though he would never again gain recognition. 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.960 Eighteen forty seven was especially rough for him. He submitted 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:34.319 three paintings, and all three were rejected. So we've been 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.480 talking about the Salon and submitting every year. And if 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.360 you're wondering why didn't he just show his art somewhere else, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.600 there really wasn't another avenue available at this time in Paris. 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.520 The Salon was the art show of the year, and 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.520 it was the place where patrons went to purchase art 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.680 and develop relationships with artists, so they would have ongoing 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.600 patronages in some place. Corbet had written of it to 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.920 his family, quote, I must exhibit to make myself known, 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.280 and unfortunately that is the only exhibition in past years 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.800 when I had not thoroughly mastered my own style and 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.920 was still painting to a certain extent. In theirs they 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.160 accepted my work, but now that I am myself, there 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.480 is no hope for me. Other now famous artists were 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.240 similarly despondent at the way the Salon Jury was running things. 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.880 Several had even met to brainstorm how they might establish 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.040 a new independent Salon, and that included people like de 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.079 la Croix and Rousseau. In eighteen forty eight, King Louis 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.280 Philippe of France was forced to abdicate, and later that 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.440 year Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became the first president of the 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.800 Second French Republic. Of course, this was a huge change 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.640 for the country, but for Gustave Courbet and other artists 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.880 resulted in a very significant shift in how the salon 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.520 was churied and had less rigid requirements for subject matter 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.560 and style. At the eighteen forty exhibition he had ten 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.440 paintings accepted for showing a lot of his paintings during 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:10.000 this time reflected the change in France's shifting sociopolitical climate. 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.600 At a time when voting rights were expanding for men anyway, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.520 and the right to work was also adopted as a 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:22.360 governmental reform, Corbet was painting people at work in various trades. 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.760 He also had the very unique insight, or possibly conceit, 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.480 to see that he was the face of a huge 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.600 change in art. He wrote to his family quote, I'm 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.920 about to make it any time now, for I am 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.760 surrounded by people who are very influential in the newspapers 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.360 and the arts, and who are very excited about my painting. Indeed, 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.000 we are about to form a new school of which 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.880 I will be the representative in the field of painting. 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.560 In a moment, we will talk about Gustav Corbet's shift 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.280 to painting landscapes and pastorals and how his representation of 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.400 the common man became so important in art history. First, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:11.920 we will pause for a sponsor break. So at this 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.920 point Corbet had been in Paris for roughly a decade 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.880 trying to make a name for himself. He had shifted 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.840 from those romantic portraits we talked about to doing some 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.800 more different types of art, and although he had his 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.040 father's financial support and then the support of an art 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:31.200 collector benefactor named Alfred Bruia, no one could argue that 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.440 he had been idle during those ten years. He had 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.040 finally earned a gold medal in the Paris Salon, and 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.640 that meant that he didn't have to submit his work 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.480 to Salon juries for exhibition going forward. So he took 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.599 a little pause and he went home to Ornand to 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.280 spend time with his family. And this break from life 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.600 in the city really proved to be exactly what the 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.640 artist needed, and being back in the countryside inspired Corbe 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.280 in a whole new way. Two of Corbet's most famous 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.959 paintings were inspired by this at home. The first was 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:06.360 titled Le Cassieurs de Pierre or the stone Breakers. As 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:08.880 its title suggests, this is an image of an older 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.400 man breaking stones and a younger man carrying a basket 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.480 of broken pieces along the side of the road. There's 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.600 an empty, dark landscape behind them. This is an interesting 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.000 image because not only did it come to be seen 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.560 as a clear example of Corbe's desire to put realism 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.440 front and center, it also shows everyday working people in 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:34.360 vivid detail without romanticizing their lives. Was eventually recognized as 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.640 raising questions about France's socioeconomic structure. And that last bit 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.680 is especially interesting because while most art historians today would 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:48.000 credit Corbe with being very deliberate about making a social statement, 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.680 and Corbet himself later claimed that that was all intentional, Uh, 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.200 there have definitely been some write ups about this work 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.360 that suggests that it might have been a little bit 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.440 less calculated. Corbe he had seen a man named Gagie, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.200 who is a road mender working as the artist, passed 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.320 by him in a carriage, and he had written to 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:07.400 a friend about it. 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:07.960 Quote. 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.760 Here is an old man of seventy bending over his 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.080 work with his hammer raised, his body burned by the sun, 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.000 his face shaded with a wide straw hat, His coarse, 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.320 stiff breeches are all patched, and his heels are showing 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.440 through his stockings, which once were white in his broken 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.240 old wooden shoes. Near him is a young man, his 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.200 skin burned brown. His filthy, ragged shirt shows his side 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.200 and his arms alas in such low life, this is 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.960 the beginning and the end. Rarely can one find so 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:45.720 complete an expression of poverty and wretchedness. Corbet then invited 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.240 Gagie to his studio to sit for him for the 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.040 painting of the Stonebreakers. The second famous work that was 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:56.000 inspired by that trip to or Not was a burial 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.480 at or Not, which he painted in eighteen fifty. This 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.200 painting massive three hundred and fifteen centimeters by six hundred 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.360 and sixty centimeters or twenty one feet by ten feet. 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.920 It depicts his great uncle's funeral. There are more than 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.040 forty people in this composition, which is very dark and 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.880 includes Mourner's clergy and family. They're all gathered around an 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.680 open grave. He showed this at the eighteen fifty one Salon, 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.320 much to the chagrin of critics. The large dimensions that 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:30.280 Korbe had used were normally reserved for romantic subjects. So 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.800 seeing such a stark scene realistically painted on something so 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.400 big I was considered ghosh and in poor taste. Even so, 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.680 some critics understood the importance of this as a moment 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.360 of massive change in art. One write up said that 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.520 Korbe had established himself as an artist quote in the 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.840 manner of a cannon ball which lodges itself. 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.920 In a wall. That's such a great description. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:01.720 These two pieces look so classic pieces of art to modernize, 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.440 not to be confused with classicism, but they just look 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.840 like when you look at them, you're like, yes, that 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.440 seems like famous old art. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:11.920 It can be difficult, though, to. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.360 Grasp just how radical they were considered in mid nineteenth 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.800 century France, at a time when the art world was 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.960 very much about showing the beauty of all things. And indeed, 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.399 we said Corbet had studied with a romantic painter, but 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.040 he had shifted gears, and he was painting things that 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.359 most people at the time would not consider beautiful, and 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.159 he was doing it with this very intense detail, in 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:39.800 what is often described as urgency. These pastorals cemented him 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.159 in the eyes of the art and literature scene of 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.760 France as the major player in the new realism movement. 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:48.359 So we should level set for just a moment and 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.480 talk about realism and what it means, because it's easy 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.159 to assume it means one thing, when really it's a 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.640 pretty broad term. Realism in terms of art is not 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:03.760 necessarily about replicating a real world object in faithful accuracy, 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.159 although it can include that. The more important foundation of 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.560 it is depicting real things rather than something fanciful or imagined. 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.080 There are a lot of works of art that can 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.480 be put under this umbrella, going all the way back 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:21.400 to ancient Greek sculpture, but the term realism didn't really 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.879 come into play as an artistic school of thought until 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:29.159 the nineteenth century, when Korbe was alive, and the realism 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.560 movement that Corbet is associated with was a rejection of 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.359 the Classicism and Romanticism that had been the standard for 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.760 French art for a very long time. He wrote about 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.199 this in a letter in eighteen sixty one in a 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.160 way that makes his feelings on this matter entirely clear, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.680 writing quote, painting is an essentially concrete art and can 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:54.040 consist only of the representation of things both real and existing. 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.719 As he came to recognize that his work depicting the 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.959 French countryside had given him a reputee haiti and deeper 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.800 name recognition. Corbe really leaned into it Ornon, where he 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.840 was born, as in the province of Borgeo and Franche Compte, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.679 which is in the eastern part of France, and it 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.040 became the star of a lot of Corbet's work. When 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.160 Louis Napoleon declared himself Emperor Napoleon the Third after staging 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.720 a coup, the atmosphere for art in Paris once again shifted. 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.240 Although Gustave Corbet had already been seen as controversial in 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.959 his work, as the government became more authoritarian and a 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.760 lot more conservative in its taste, his work was perceived 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.600 as being downright confrontational. His painting Young Ladies of the Village, 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.880 which shows three women modeled by his sisters, offering alms 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.400 to a young girl who is herding cows, was critiqued 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.000 as a clumsy affront to social morase. When you look 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.680 at this painting today, you go, oh, that's lovely, but 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.199 people were real mad about it at the time. In 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.040 eighteen fifty five, Gustav started to work on a massive project, 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:07.639 and we use massive both literally and figuratively, the canvas 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.320 of the painting, which he completed in six weeks, is 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.680 three hundred and sixty one by five hundred ninety eight centimeters. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.320 That's eleven point eight feet by nineteen point six feet, 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.520 so similar to the dimensions of a burial at Ornan, 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.280 but the subject matter is expansive as well. The painting 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:29.040 is sometimes called the Artist's Studio or the Painter's Studio, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.680 but the full title is a Painter's Studio, A real 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.000 allegory summing up seven years of my life as an artist. 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.600 Corbet is at the center of the painting working it's 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.000 painting a landscape of an area near or non Behind 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.000 him is what appears to be an artist's model. It's 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.720 a naked woman with her dress at her feet, but 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.160 he's not painting her or even looking at her. Instead, 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:56.000 she is closely watching him. There's also a small child 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.680 watching him paint. So these three figures Corbet, the woman 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.720 in the ch child form the central grouping of the image, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.440 and the rest of the painting's casts of characters are 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:06.679 separated to the right. 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:07.160 And the left. 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:09.800 The group to the left is filled with the sort 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.720 of rural characters that populated much of Corbet's work. There's 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.440 also a representation of the Crucifixion of Christ on the 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.080 left side as well. Close to and kind of just 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.199 behind the left side of the painter's canvas in the 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.760 image as he works. On the right are Corbet's friends 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.680 and patrons, including the writer Charles Baudlare. This painting continues 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.959 to be interpreted and analyzed by art history scholars. In 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:39.120 mixing allegory and reality, Corbet seems to have laid out 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.880 a puzzle for the viewer to solve, but no one 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.320 seems to agree on what exactly the meaning of the 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:48.159 piece is. This painting was submitted for the eighteen fifty 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.720 five exhibition in Paris and it was not accepted. After 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.439 having achieved a level of recognition where he had been 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.920 able to place pieces in the salon without jury approval. 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.439 This was just a slap in the face. Napoleon the 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:05.320 third had directed that only pleasant art be included at 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.679 the salon, and the artist's studio was determined to be 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:14.080 too demanding of the viewer, and Corbet had eleven pieces 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.600 accepted for the salon, but he just took matters into 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.399 his own hands to get all of his paintings in 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:22.600 front of the eyes of the public. He rented a 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.240 space near the exposition and set up his own pavilion 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:30.120 to showcase this huge painting, as well as some other works. 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.439 He called this the Pavilion of Realism. The Pavilion of 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.680 Realism was not a success. Although many of his contemporaries 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.919 and Eugene de la Croix in particular, admired the ambition 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.040 of this effort, it just wasn't well attended. The public 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.840 mostly saw this as a stunt or like a really 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.760 expensive tantrum. Yeah, there's one exchange. I will get it 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:56.080 wrong because I'm just retelling it. I didn't quote it 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.119 here where there was a person who was like, and 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.359 this is really a lot, like you really think highly 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:04.679 of yourself, and Corbe wrote back, do you not know 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:07.560 I'm the most arrogant person in Paris. He was just like, 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:09.880