July 25, 2022 • 43 mins
Courbet was iconic even in his own lifetime. He flew in the face of artistic convention, turned down awards, and ushered in a new movement of Realism in France. He also became embroiled in the country’s political turmoil.
Research:
- Courbet, Gustave “Madame Auguste Cuoq (Mathilde Desportes, 1827–1910)” The Met. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436016
- Courbet, Gustave. “Woman in a Riding Habit (L'Amazone).” 1856. The Met. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436024
- Bénédite, Léonce. “Gustave Courbet: With a Biographical and Critical Study.” W. Heinemann. 1912.
- Fernier, Robert J.. "Gustave Courbet". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Jun. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gustave-Courbet
- Berman, Avis. “Larger Than Life.” Smithsonian Magazine. April 2008. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/larger-than-life-31654689/
- Nochlin, Linda. “Gustave Courbet's Meeting: A Portrait of the Artist as a Wandering Jew.” Art Bulletin. Vol. 49. No. 3. https://www.collegeart.org/pdf/artbulletin/Art%20Bulletin%20Vol%2049%20No%203%20Nochlin.pdf
- Macnearny, Allison. “This Artistic Masterpiece Was Destroyed When The Allies Bombed Dresden.” The Daily Beast. April 7, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/gustave-courbets-the-stonebreakers-the-masterpiece-destroyed-when-the-allies-bombed-dresden
- Harris, Dr. Beth and Dr. Steven Zucker. “Gustave Courbet, The Stonebreakers.” https://smarthistory.org/courbet-the-stonebreakers/
- Harris, Dr. Beth and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Gustave Courbet, The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Life as an Artist," in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015. https://smarthistory.org/courbet-the-artists-studio/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Tracy, I don't
know why I've never asked you this before. Do you
watch What We Do in the Shadows? I intend to
(00:22):
watch what We Do in the Shadows. There's just too much.
There's too much stuff to watch right now, there is
way too much. I won't shade anybody ever for not
keeping up with something, because who can. I'm scared of
the person that keeps up with everything. But the opening
credits of What We Do in the Shadows has a
series of amazing spoofs of famous and not so famous
(00:44):
pieces of art, with the characters from the show painted
into them as though they have been around for hundreds
and hundreds of years because they are vampires. Almost every
piece of art we'll talk about some variation, is actually
based on an existing piece of art. Art art, art,
It's such such good stuff. Um. Two of those pieces
(01:09):
are based on the work of Gustav Corbet, and I
really have wanted to talk about him anyway, And that
was a good entree because I love that show. It
is just starting its fourth season. I think as we
published this episode, it should be out already, and it's
so fun. Obviously, uh not for all ages. It's a
(01:30):
very grown up show, but with adult themes. Similarly, this episode,
I will warn you at one point we were going
to talk about a painting that is pretty graphic and explicit.
If you have younger art historians or art enthusiasts with you, you,
I mean, you might want to preview it just for safety.
I don't know how you feel about it. Everybody's got
(01:51):
a different threshold. But Corbet was iconic even in his
own lifetime. He flew in the face of artistic convention.
He turned down awards, he ushered in a new movement
of realism in France. He was kind of like the
bad boy of mid nineteenth century Paris art scene. And
he also became embroiled in the country's political turmoil. So
(02:14):
that is who we were talking about today. Jean des
Saree Gustave Courbet was born on June tenth, eighteen nineteen,
in the small town of Ornan, France. This is in
the east of France, not far from the border with Switzerland.
His parents were Reggie and Silvi Udo Courbet and Regie
is sometimes described as a farmer, but to be clear,
(02:36):
he was a very successful farmer. This wasn't like a
small family farm. He wasn't doing farm work on somebody
else's farm. He had a large scale, multi property commercial
farm that included some really lucrative vineyards. Gustav also had
three younger sisters, Zoe, Zelli, and Juliet, and these daughters
(02:58):
appeared in a lot of their brothers paintings. Yeah he uh.
He liked to paint his friends and family in paintings,
as willis himself, which we'll talk about. After his early schooling,
Gustave enrolled at the College Royale and then attended a
fine art school in Besancon. His proclivity toward becoming an
artist wasn't really in line with what his parents had
(03:19):
in mind for him. They wanted him to pursue a
career in law. So when he was in his early
twenties the actual year this happened varies by source, but
they sent him to Paris to study law. He did
not do that. Uh. He is said to have been
really very very close to this family and to have
truly loved his parents. We'll talk a lot about his
(03:39):
letters home to his parents and his family, but he
really just did not see any path for himself in
life but art. So when he got to Paris, he
did not enroll in law school, unsurprising based on what
Holly just said, but he also didn't enroll in art school, though.
He went to the Louver and studied the art there
and also made contact with artists who lived in the
(04:01):
city so we could take private lessons in some cases
asked them for advice. In particular, he studied with romantic
painter Baron Charles von Steuben and finally confessed all of
this to his father. He said he could not be
a lawyer, he only wanted to be an artist. His
father's response was surprising and incredibly supportive. He wrote to
(04:23):
his son quote, if anyone gives up, it will be you,
not me. He assured his son that he would support
his ambitions, both emotionally and financially, and that he would
sell off everything he had if it came to that.
I don't think that's what he was expecting of his father.
So Courbet, with his father's blessing at this point, started
pursuing an art career. In earnest he wrote to his
(04:47):
parents quote, within five years, I must have a reputation
in Paris. But he still did not enroll at any
formal school. Instead, he was largely self taught and his
development was based largely un copying works of famous artists,
something a lot of artists did and still do to
gain technical skills informed their own style. He also, as
(05:08):
we said, took some private lessons, and he started submitting
his original works to the Academy de bosaar annual Salon
exhibit in in eighteen forty four. Just a few years
into this effort, one of his paintings was accepted. That
painting was Corbet with a Black Dog or self Portrait
with a black Dog. This is not a close up portrait,
(05:29):
but a full view of the subject that, of course
is Corbet himself. Obviously, he's seated with his entire body included.
And it's interesting because Corbet appears to be sitting on
the ground with an English spaniel standing partially on his lap.
But the point of view of the viewer is even
lower down than the subject close to the ground, so
(05:50):
Corbet appears to be looking down. He has on a
hat that has his upper face in shadow, and a
drapy coat that's flipped open at his leg to reveal
a yellow lining. Corbet wrote to his family of the
acceptance of this painting, saying quote, I have been admitted
to the exhibition and him highly delighted. It is not
the picture I should have preferred them to take, but
(06:12):
it makes no matter. They did me the honor of
hanging me well in the exhibition, and that is some compensation.
The following year, Corbet, spurred on by his success, submitted
five works for consideration for the Salon, but only one
small one was accepted. That's Le Guariro, and it features
(06:33):
a man in an almost reverse image of the black
dog portrait from the previous year we just described, once
again seated on the ground, but this time no dog
in his lap. He's creating a guitar. This is a
very romantic image, hearkening to an earlier time period, and
although it's not categorized as a self portrait, Corbet pretty
obviously used himself as a model. Corbet continued to submit
(06:57):
pieces for the Salon in the years after this, but
his success rate kind of dropped off and was pretty low,
but he remained undaunted. He was a very confident person.
That's probably a little easier when you know you have
financial backing. And he continued to paint, and he continued
to envision and plan his place in the art world.
Even in these early years of his career, Gustav was
(07:19):
really shrewd about crafting his image with the public and
with the art community. So he had come from a
wealthy family and he received a good education. Because he
came from the country, Parisians often assumed he was just
an uneducated peasant. He was totally happy to let people
do that because he knew it added to his mystique
(07:39):
as a painter. He saw every opportunity to like build
his life story in a way that would increase interest
in his work. We'll talk about one later on that
there's a little mind blowing to me. One of the
paintings that Corbet worked on starting in the eighteen forties
was one called The Wounded Man. This was another image
of the artist himself, this time in the romantic role
(08:00):
of a man reclining with his eyes closed, having suffered
an injury, presumably from a sword. This is a painting
that is often listed as having started in the eighteen
forties and being finished in the eighteen fifties. He didn't
normally take that long to make a painting, but it
wasn't considered finished until then because Corbet altered it significantly.
(08:23):
At one point, the hero in the image had been
accompanied by a woman leaning over his shoulder. She was,
it is believed, based on Virginie Binet, who modeled for
a lot of paintings for Corbet during a roughly ten
year long romantic relationship. The two of them were not married,
but they lived together as a couple. To all outward appearances,
(08:43):
they were as committed as a married couple. They had
a son together named Desiree Alfred Emil, but in the
early nineteen fifties Virginie moved away from Paris when she
and Corbet broke up, and she took their child with her.
And it seems that she and Corbet had no contact
after the breakup, and Corbet had then painted her out
(09:03):
of the wounded man, and he placed a sword in
her place in the painting. If you look at it,
it does look a little weird. Uh, it's not bad,
it's just a strange. It doesn't feel like that was
part of the original composition. He did not after this
have any long term, serious relationships. Although there were a
lot of women in his life, he kind of just
(09:26):
enjoyed playing the field, it seems. He wrote to a
friend of his relationships with women, quote, I am as
inclined to get married as I am to hang myself.
Corbet's relationship with the Salon waxed and waned in the
late eighteen forties. He went from that elation of having
felt that his work was well placed and that he
was just getting started. He went from that to a
(09:48):
long series of setbacks and feeling as though he would
never again gain recognition. Eighteen forty seven was especially rough
for him. He submitted three paintings than all three were rejected.
So we've been talking about the Salon and submitting every year.
And if you're wondering why didn't he just show his
art somewhere else, there really wasn't another avenue available at
(10:13):
this time in Paris. The Salon was the art show
of the year, and it was the place where patrons
went to purchase art and develop relationships with artists, so
they would have ongoing patronages in some place. Corbet had
written of it to his family, quote, I must exhibit
to make myself known, and unfortunately that is the only
exhibition in past years when I had not thoroughly mastered
(10:36):
my own style and was still painting to a certain extent.
In theirs. They accepted my work, but now that I
am myself, there is no hope for me. Other now
famous artists were similarly despondent at the way the Salon
jury was running things. Several had even met to brainstorm
how they might establish a new independent Salon, and that
(10:58):
included people like Delacroix and rue Show. In eighteen forty eight,
King Louis Philippe of France was forced to abdicate, and
later that year Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became the first president
of the Second French Republic. Of course, this was a
huge change for the country, but for Gustave Courbet and
other artists resulted in a very significant shift in how
(11:21):
the Salon was juried and had less rigid requirements for
subject matter and style. At the eight forty eight exhibition,
he had ten paintings accepted for showing a lot of
his paintings during this time reflected the change in France's
shifting socio political climate at a time when voting rights
were expanding for men anyway, and the right to work
(11:45):
was also adopted as a governmental reform. Corbet was painting
people at work in various trades. He also had the
very unique insight, or possibly conceit, to see that he
was the face of a huge change in art. He
wrote to his family quote, I'm about to make it
any time now, for i am surrounded by people who
(12:05):
are very influential in the newspapers and the arts, and
who are very excited about my painting. Indeed, we are
about to form a new school of which I will
be the representative in the field of painting. In a moment,
we will talk about Gustave Corbet's shift to painting landscapes
and pastorals and how his representation of the common man
(12:26):
became so important in art history. But first we will
pause for a sponsor break. So at this point Corbet
had been in Paris for roughly a decade trying to
make a name for himself. He had shifted from those
(12:47):
romantic portraits we talked about to doing some more different
types of art. And although he've had his father's financial
support and then the support of an art collector benefactor
named Alfred Bruya. No one could argue that he had
been idle during those ten years. He had finally earned
a gold medal in the Paris Salon, and that meant
that he didn't have to submit his work to Salon
(13:09):
juries for exhibition going forward. So he took a little
pause and he went home to Ornand to spend time
with his family. And this break from life in the
city really proved to be exactly what the artist needed,
and being back in the countryside inspired Corbet in a
whole new way. Two of Corbet's most famous paintings were
inspired by this visit home. The first was titled Le
(13:31):
cassier to Pierre, or the Stone Breakers. As its title suggests,
this is an image of an older man breaking stones
and a younger man carrying a basket of broken pieces
along the side of the road. There's an empty, dark
landscape behind them. This is an interesting image because not
only did it come to be seen as a clear
example of Corbet's desire to put realism front and center,
(13:56):
also shows everyday working people in vivid detail without roman
antasizing their lives. Was eventually recognized as raising questions about
France's socio economic structure. And that last bit is especially
interesting because while most art historians today would credit Corbet
with being very deliberate about making a social statement, and
(14:17):
Corbet himself later claimed that that was all intentional, Uh,
there have definitely been some write ups about this work
that suggests that it might have been a little bit
less calculated. Corbet had seen a man named Gagi, who
was a road mender working as the artist passed by
him in a carriage, and he had written to a
friend about it. Quote. Here is an old man of
(14:38):
seventy bending over his work with his hammer raised, his
body burned by the sun, his face shaded with a
wide straw hat. His core stiff breeches are all patched,
and his heels are showing through his stockings which once
were white in his broken old wooden shoes. Near him
is a young man, his skin burned brown. His filthy,
(14:59):
ragged shirt shows his side and his arms alas in
such low life, this is the beginning and the end.
Rarely can one find so complete an expression of poverty
and wretchedness. Corbet then invited Gudgie to his studio to
sit for him for the painting of the Stone Breakers,
the second famous work that was inspired by that trip
(15:22):
to or Not was a burial at or Not, which
he painted in eighteen fifty. This painting is massive, fift
centimeters by six hundred sixties centimeters or by ten ft.
It depicts his great uncle's funeral. There are more than
forty people in this composition, which is very dark, includes mourners, clergy,
(15:45):
and family. They're all gathered around an open grave. He
showed this at the eight fifty one Salon, much to
the chagrin of critics. The large dimensions that Corbet had
used were normally reserved for romantic subjects, so seeing such
a stark scene realistically painted on something so big I
was considered ghost and in poor taste. Even so, some
(16:08):
critics understood the importance of this as a moment of
massive change in art. One write up said that Corbet
had established himself as an artist quote in the manner
of a cannon ball which lodges itself in a wall.
That's such a great description. Uh. These two pieces look
so classic as pieces of art to modernize, not to
(16:31):
be confused with classicism. Um, but they just look like
when you look at them, you're like, yes, that's that
seems like famous old art. Uh. It can be difficult though,
to grasp just how radical they were considered in mid
nineteenth century France, at a time when the art world
was very much about showing the beauty of all things.
And indeed, we said Corbet had studied with a romantic painter,
(16:54):
but he had shifted gears, and he was painting things
that most people at the time would not consider beautiful,
and he was doing it with this very intense detail
and what is often described as urgency. These pastorals cemented
him in the eyes of the art and literature scene
of France as the major player in the new realism movement.
(17:15):
So we should level set for just a moment and
talk about realism and what it means, because it's easy
to assume it means one thing, when really it's a
pretty broad term. Realism in terms of art is not
necessarily about replicating a real world object in faithful accuracy,
although it can include that. The more important foundation of
(17:37):
it is depicting real things rather than something fanciful or imagined.
There are a lot of works of art that can
be put under this umbrella, going all the way back
to ancient Greek sculpture, but the term Realism didn't really
come into play as an artistic school of thought until
the nineteenth century, when Corbet was alive, and the realism
(17:58):
movement that Corbet is associated with was a rejection of
the Classicism and Romanticism that had been the standard for
French art for a very long time. He wrote about
this in a letter in eighteen sixty one in a
way that makes his feelings on this matter entirely clear,
writing quote, Painting is an essentially concrete art and can
(18:18):
consist only of the representation of things, both real and existing.
As he came to recognize that his work depicting the
French countryside had given him a reputation and deeper name recognition,
Corbet really leaned into it or none where he was born,
as in the province of Bourgeon and franc Compte, which
is in the eastern part of France, and it became
(18:41):
the star of a lot of Corbet's work. When Louis
Napoleon declared himself Emperor Napoleon the Third after staging a coup,
the atmosphere for art in Paris once again shifted. Although
Gustav Corbet had already been seen as controversial in his work.
As the government became more thor Matarian and a lot
(19:02):
more conservative in its taste, his work was perceived as
being downright confrontational. His painting Young Ladies of the Village,
which shows three women modeled by his sisters offering alms
to a young girl who is hurting cows, was critiqued
as a clumsy affront to social morais. When you look
at this painting today, you go, oh, that's lovely, but
(19:24):
people were real mad about it at the time. In
eighteen fifty four, Gustav started to work on a massive project,
and we used massive both literally and figuratively. The canvas
of the painting, which he completed in six weeks, is
three hundred sixty one by five centimeters that's eleven point
eight ft by nineteen point six feet, so similar to
(19:47):
the dimensions of a burial at or No, but the
subject matter is expansive as well. The painting is sometimes
called the Artist's Studio or the Painter's Studio, but the
full title is a pain Winter's Studio, A real allegory
summing up seven years of my life as an artist.
Corbet is at the center of the painting, working painting
(20:09):
a landscape of an area. Near or not behind him
is what appears to be an artist's model. It's a
naked woman with her dress at her feet, but he's
not painting her or even looking at her. Instead, she
is closely watching him. There's also a small child watching
him paint. So these three figures Courbet, the woman, and
the child form the central grouping of the image, and
(20:31):
the rest of the paintings casts of characters are separated
to the right and the left. The group to the
left is filled with the sort of rural characters that
populated much of Corbet's work. There's also a representation of
the Crucifixion of Christ on the left side as well.
Close to and kind of just behind the left side
of the painter's canvas in the image as he works.
(20:53):
On the right are Corbet's friends and patrons, including the
writer Charles Boudlare. This painting continues to be interpreted and
analyzed by art history scholars. In mixing allegory and reality,
Corbett seems to have laid out a puzzle for the
viewer to solve, but no one seems to agree on
what exactly the meaning of the piece is. This painting
(21:15):
was submitted for the eighteen fifty five exhibition in Paris,
and it was not accepted. After having achieved a level
of recognition where he had been able to place pieces
in the salon without jury approval, this was just a
slap in the face. Napoleon the third had directed that
only pleasant art to be included at the salon, and
the artist's studio was determined to be too demanding of
(21:38):
the viewer, and Corbett had eleven pieces accepted for the salon,
but he just took matters into his own hands to
get all of his paintings in front of the eyes
of the public. He rented a space near the exposition
and set up his own pavilion to showcase this huge painting,
as well as some other works. He called the the
(22:00):
Pavilion of Realism. The Pavilion of Realism was not a success.
Although many of his contemporaries and Eugene Delacroix in particular,
admired the ambition of this effort, it just wasn't well attended.
The public mostly saw this as a stunt, or like
a really expensive tantrum. Yeah, there's one exchange. I will
(22:22):
get it wrong because I'm just retelling it. I didn't
quote it here where there was a person who was like,
this is really a lot, like you really think highly
of yourself, and Corbet wrote back, do you not know
I'm the most arrogant person in Paris. He was just like,
it's just like this is how it is, dude. It's
all my paintings or nothing. Um. Incidentally, it was during
(22:42):
the eighteen fifties, when Corbett's fame was rapidly on the rise,
that he painted the two paintings that are spoofed in
the opening of What We Do in the Shadows. The
first in terms of when Corbet painted it, although I
think it appears second in the opening credits of the
show is a painting titled Madame august Quo, which was
a commissioned rendering of Mattila Deport as ordered by her husband.
(23:05):
This features a woman in almost full length wearing a
black plated gown with a striking green wrap. The television
show created one with the vampire Nadia as Madame deport
and in the show's opening there is also a matching
painting of Nadia's husband Laslow. Although Corbett did not paint
a companion piece to Madame august Quoc. The second Corbett
(23:26):
spoof in the TV shows opening credits once again features
Nadia in a recreation of Corbet's eighteen fifty six painting
woman in a riding hat. You'll also see that sometimes
listed as the Horsewoman. This was also a portrait commission.
Gustav was hired to paint Madame Clement Laurier as a
wedding gift to the bride from her husband. In this case,
(23:46):
Corbett did also paint a portrait of Monsieur Laurier, but
it is not that portrait that's used for Laslow in
the show. There's a matching portrait made that appears to
be an original creation to look more like a match
to the Madame are a painting. You can see both
of Corbet's original portraits at the met If you're interested
and want to do ah some sort of what we
(24:07):
do in the Shadows art crawl. That sounds great. In
a moment, we'll talk about Corbet's influence on the impressionists
who followed him and his involvement in politics. But first
we are going to hear from some of the sponsors
who keep Stuffy miss in history class going. Corbet went
(24:32):
to Germany for a visit in eighteen fifty six, and
there he made a lot of new connections with fellow artists.
Whereas France had come to see Corbet at this point
as a rabble rouser or sometimes even a nuisance, for
the way that he both ignored the traditions of the
art scene of the day and thumbed his nose at criticism,
it seems that the German sensibilities were more willing to
embrace his realism. He had painted a lot of works
(24:56):
that featured hunting parties, and those were particularly popular in Germany.
One of the interesting aspects of Corbet's realism is that
it wasn't confined to any particular subject matter. He painted landscapes,
he painted the lower classes at their work. He made
portraits of himself and other people. He painted nude studies
of women, quite a lot of them. His work in landscapes, though,
(25:19):
is often said to have paved the way for the
Impressionist movement, as he worked to capture things like the
sky as it was breaking into a storm over the
sea at the shoreline. He had started to bring in
the ideas that shaped Impressionism, particularly in his use of
color and light reflections. Whereas Corbet's realism was all about
capturing all and any subjects of the world. Impressionism would
(25:42):
kind of take that to a new space, as it
showed the world realistically but with a focus on the
waist that light and color can shift our perceptions of reality.
Throughout the eighteen sixties, Gustave enjoyed quite a bit of success.
He had become the figurehead not just for realism but
for breaking away from the establishment, and that really rebellious spirit,
(26:03):
combined with his skill, attracted a lot of collectors. And then,
though his relationship with the French government under Napoleon the
Third wasn't good, he was nominated as a recipient of
the French Legion of Honor in eighteen seventy. Kurbai turned
this down, writing quote, honor does not lie in a
title or a ribbon. It lies in actions and the
(26:24):
motives for actions. I honor myself by remaining faithful to
my lifelong principles. If I betrayed them, I should desert
honor to where it's mark now. He was not a
fan of Napoleon the Third's covernment at the end of
the Franco German War, also called the Franco Prussian War.
The Paris Commune formed as an insurrectionist group in response
(26:48):
to dissatisfaction at the armistice agreement that France had signed
with Germany. Emperor Napoleon the Third had entered the war
way over confident and France had not really been prepared,
and the Treaty of Frankfurt, France had had to concede
the annexation of Alsace and part of Lorraine, as well
as the payment of five billion francs to cover the
(27:08):
expenses of the German army's occupation of France. In the
briefest of terms, this meant that the Paris Commune was
against both the Army of Versailles and the German Army.
There was fear that the National Assembly was going to
reinstate the monarchy, which was opposite of what Parisians who
favored the Republic wanted, and Corbet aligned with the Commune
(27:29):
as it attempted to establish its own French government and
reject the Third Republic and Napoleon the Third. The Commune
had been established in the middle of March eighteen seventy one,
and it was suppressed in May, so it didn't last
very long, and Corbet had left the group early in
May before it was disbanded, because he actually found it
too extreme, so here in a quote later, he didn't
(27:51):
really like aligning with anybody, but that association with the
Paris Commune really hurt him. Kurbet had been elected president
of Artists Federation, and in that role it felt to
him to re establish the National Salon and to reopen
the museums which had been closed during the war. He
made an unusual move, though, and instead focused on monuments
(28:14):
outside of Paris, the palace at Fontainebleau, which had been
occupied by German forces, and the porcelain factory at Seve.
As all of this was going on, members of the
Paris Commune had decided to destroy a military monument in
the Place Vendome. It was a column that commemorated Napoleon
Bonapartes military and it was something Corbett had spoken of
(28:36):
with disdain on many occasions. When the Commune destroyed it
on May sixteenth, Corbet was believed to have spearheaded the move,
even though he had left the group before that happened.
He had circulated a petition to take that monument down
the year before, in eighteen seventy, so there was an
official record of him calling for its destruction. After the
(28:58):
commune was conclusively defeated by the Army of Versailles at
the end of May, Corbet was arrested in the first
week of June and put on trial as a political instigator.
Let's trial did not go well. The people who actually
had destroyed the monument had fled the country, although they
it had insisted that the artist had not been involved.
(29:19):
Even so, he was found guilty and sentenced to six
months in prison. There was also a fine, although because
Corbet had friends who were highly placed in the new
provisional government, the some of that fine was minimal. Yeah,
he was in this unique space where he kind of
disliked every established thing and fought against it. But he
also had friends in almost every position, you know, with
(29:42):
any alignment, because a lot of people were buying his
work and we're fans of his. Gaustaph Corbet was sent
to prison at Saint Pelagie, but he fell ill and
he was transferred to a medical facility near Paris to
finish his sentence. When that sentence ended and he was
a freeman again, he not stay in Paris. He instead
went back to his beloved countryside and family in Ornan.
(30:05):
He hoped to rest and rebuild his health and put
the whole thing behind him, but that was not to be.
But even while incarcerated, he had written letters to his
family that this whole ordeal had a bright side, which
is it was only going to drive up interest in
his work and enable him to raise his prices. In
eighteen seventy two, Adelphier, who had helped ensure Corbet's fines
(30:28):
weren't too steep after his trial, resigned from his presidency.
Let's put Bonaparte loyalists back in power. They did not
feel that Corbet had truly paid his debt to society,
so the French government sued Corbet for the money needed
to replace the destroyed monument. The trial for this was
(30:48):
never going to go his way. Corbet was fined five
hundred thousand fracs, and this was an absurd amount of money.
There was no way he could pay it. By the
time the judgment was passed down, all Corbett's assets had
already been seized, including all of his paintings. Everything he
owned had been taken by the French government. Yeah, I
(31:09):
have seen different numbers. Aside from that five hundred thousand francs,
but it's always many hundreds of thousand. It's kind of
like the absurdly high number of going Tracy. You owe
me twelve billion dollars. No, really, it was thirteen billions.
I mean, it's like it felt that absurd to him
because he had nothing. In addition to that, the government
(31:33):
had been watching his family and friends. They were all
under surveillance, and a number of artists that he was
associated with finally decided that being associated with him was
too dangerous and that he needed to be barred from
future salons and basically excommunicated from the city's art circles.
One of his friends in the art world wrote to
another the sad phrase, he must be dead to us.
(31:56):
So he left the country and headed for Switzerland. On
July seventy three, he left France and never returned. Initially,
Corbett went to Fleurier, which is only about ten kilometers
or a little more than six miles away from the
French border, but Gustave became anxious that this was just
too close to France, so he moved about eighty five
(32:18):
kilometers south to lave lach Lament. He didn't stay there either,
but also didn't travel very far before putting down roots.
He went just about two kilometers more south to Latoure
de Peals and purchased an inn, which he named Bonport
or Safe Harbor. Because he had left Paris, he actually
missed out on a move by some of his fellow artists,
(32:40):
which no doubt would have pleased him. In eighteen seventy four, Monet, Pizzarro, Cesanne,
and Renoir, tired of the Paris Salon, offering the only
chance at having their work publicly seen, put together their
own show, and that is actually the art exhibition that
the term Impressionists was coined at. Many art historians credit
(33:00):
Corbet's daring with helping to kick start the Impressionists. Some
have said it would have happened anyway, but it happened
about ten years earlier than it would have had Courbet
not been involved. In his final years, Corbet drank heavily
and neglected his health. The stress of the trials and
his incarceration, and having so many of his colleagues turned
(33:20):
their back on him that all took a toll. He
had hoped that he might be granted an amnesty and
be able to return to France, but Instead, the French
government directed him to pay for the cost of the
monument and ten thousand franc installments. It's like going, You'll
owe us forever. They also auctioned off all of his
art that they had seized. Corbet died on December thirty one,
(33:43):
eighteen seventy seven. He was only fifty eight, and the
cause of his death was listed as a dima that
was likely the result of drinking. Although he had never
gotten to return to France in life, in nineteen nineteen
his remains were moved from Switzerland to Ornand, where he
was reint heard in the same cemetery featured in his
painting A Burial at Ornand. A nineteen twelve collection of
(34:06):
Corbet's work with commentary by Leons Benedete, opens with the
line quote Corbet was one of Corbet's favorite subjects. It
has often been thrown up against him by men who
forget that an artist has great difficulty in finding a
model as convenient or as well studied as himself. But
it was said the painter, who delighted in making so
(34:27):
many of his contemporaries look uglier than they were, was
much nicer and more generous when it came to his
own face. The artist has no excuse save the masterpieces
that his rather exclusive indulgence has given us. Um we've
only talked about a couple of the self portraits here.
It's worth checking out more of them. The one that's
(34:50):
going to be on our social media is not one
of the ones that we have mentioned here, but is striking.
But really, Gustav Corbet gave the art world awful lot
more than beautiful paintings. His rebellious spirit, which was part
of his art really before he even became politically active,
led to a number of innovations and moves that scandalized
(35:11):
the art world at the time, but became very commonplace
as later generations of artists adopted them. We already talked
about his embrace of realism at a time when Romanticism
was the standard. His provocative paintings and behaviors were not accidental.
He had written early in his career that he had
a goal quote to change the public's taste and way
(35:32):
of seeing. No small task, for it means no more
and no less than overturning what exists and replacing it.
In addition to that, Corbet's nudes through the Paris art
establishment into a tizzy. He was certainly not at all
the first person to paint nude figures. Historical figures and
(35:52):
art were completely acceptable at the time as nudes, even
in very sensual scenarios. But his realism was very real.
It left nothing to the imagination. It wasn't romanticized. One
of his most well known examples of this is a
painting titled Origin of the World or Laura Jeanne du Monde,
which is a view of a woman's body lying on
(36:13):
a bed in which her genitalia are the focus of
the work. When he painted this in eighteen sixty six,
it was completely shocking. Was a private commission and it
didn't go on public display, but art critics certainly saw
it and they weighed in on it. There's debate around
it that continues until this day. The Origin of the
World passed from private collector to private collector over the years.
(36:36):
It was once even owned by Jacques Lacan, but it
didn't go on public display until nineteen eighty eight, when
it was shown at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
Today it's part of the collection of the muse d'Orsay,
and it's still Elicits really strong responses, but it, in
similar work set the stage for other artists to show
human bodies without the limitations that the art established had
(36:58):
placed on them before this work. There's also some fun
gossip about who the model for this may have been
that Holly is going to talk about on Friday. Yes,
that gossip is good. This is interesting because it's one
of those things that was considered pornographic when he painted
it in eighteen sixty six. There are still people today
who will say that straight up pornography and not art.
(37:20):
It's very controversial, so he sure did stay relevant in
that regard. Even in less explicit paintings. Corbet's detractors found
him to be scandalous. In eighteen seventy two, at a
time when the painter's life and country were in upheaval,
he painted a work called Sleep and This features two
naked women asleep in each other's arms. It was considered
(37:43):
so controversial when it was shown publicly that there was
actually a police report filed about it for indecency. As
Corbet was already on the outs with the French government
at this time. That report went into a file that
was being kept to document his life. On a more
technical note rather than relating to his subject matter. Corbet
was also one of the first artists to use a
(38:04):
palette knife and his fingers to apply the paint to
the canvas. Palette knives were strictly considered mixing tools at
the times. This is the fine art equivalent of applying
wall paint with a stir stick. For Corbet, though, it
was a different way to control his medium. Yeah, and
it was one of those things. I mean, obviously it
worked and he was very good at it. I think
(38:25):
it was um Sissan that said, like, his talent was
just limitless, and it was kind of a reflection of
him being able to do completely new things in ways
that resulted in just beautiful work. Today, Corbet's work is
recognized for its important in the development of Western art.
There are frequent exhibitions mounted featuring most of his works.
(38:45):
Two canvases, though are generally excluded. Both Burial at Ornan
and the Painter Studio are very large, which makes shipping difficult,
but they are also considered to be too delicate to
be shipped, so even though they are considered some of
his most important works, both remain in the permanent collection
of the muse d'Orsay, and they cannot be loaned out.
(39:06):
Another important Corbet painting that you will not see in
any collected exhibit today is the Stone Breakers because it
was unfortunately destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in World
War Two. Eight years before his death, Corbet was embroiled
in France's very volatile political shifts. He described himself and
his ideology in a single succinct passage in a letter
(39:29):
to a friend. It seems the right place to wrap
up his story. He wrote, quote, 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 regime except the regime of liberty. Gustav Corbett.
(39:54):
He's an interesting one. I have an interesting listener mail.
Cool because, as as I mentioned before, I'm still working
through a whole lot of boxes sent to my house
from the office. Many of our listeners have sent us
gifts for the last couple of years, and TI I'm
still opening. So I wanted to read this one and
(40:18):
say a huge thank you to our listener Greg, who
writes Dear History Ladies. I was recently catching up on
a significant backlog of podcasts and came across the one
you did on Guatemala and how the United Fruit Company
used to muck about in the politics of countries where
they had interests. Please find enclosed a model United Fruit
(40:38):
ship SS Telemanca, along with some other United Fruit items. Yes,
that's right, I'm pulling it out of the box. Carefully, sure,
crazy on camera, we got a model ship. Wow, um,
it's quite cool. Greg goes on, I build model ships
and integrate ephemera specific to the history of the ship
(41:00):
into the model's display case. He include a picture. I
did not make the United Fruit Company model, but I
found it in an antique shop and then accumulated there
were related items from other sources, thinking that I would
incorporate them all into a single display and resell it. However,
I've got too many models and two little time left.
So when I revisited the Talamanca project after hearing your podcasts,
(41:21):
you folks came to mind. I believe they used to
sell these models as a souvenir of your voyage, so
it's quite likely this was once on the Talamanca. This
particular example was in a very nasty state when I
acquired it. You would not know it. It is pristine now.
The deck has been cleaned and repainted, but years of
neglect took their toll. The inside of the cargo hatch
on the stern, which I didn't clean and repaint, represents
(41:43):
what the entire deck looked like. I think the fourth
of July menu is particularly interesting and invokes all kinds
of images of what it must have been like to
travel during this era. He included a menu. Obviously, I've
got no idea what the story behind the button would be.
If you've already got any of this stuff, I certainly
do not. Uh, it's that's cool, Greg Rights. Feel free
to regift, or you can just toss it all. It
(42:03):
doesn't really have much value. It was much more fun
to send it to you rather than sell it in
the yard sale. Take care, stay safe, and keep up
the great work, Greg. Greg, thank you so much. This
really is beautiful and it's super cool, and I have
to I am in the midst of doing a big
house reord, so I will find a cool place for it,
and then if Tracy wants it at some point, we'll
hand it off and we'll just trade it back and
forth for the rest of our lives. Um uh yeah.
(42:27):
It was one of those boxes that I was like,
so many of the boxes shipped to me, we're books,
and they're obviously like when you pick up a box
of books, you know that's what it is. And I
picked that box up and went, this is not books, uh,
and then opened it and was delighted by the giant
surprise inside. It was pretty If you would like to
write to us, we're changing offices, so right now emails
(42:48):
the way to come. You can do that at History
Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find
us on social media as missed in History, and we
are of course see to subscribe to. You can do
that on the I heart radio app or anywhere you
listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
(43:10):
Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Tracy, I don't
know why I've never asked you this before. Do you
watch What We Do in the Shadows? I intend to
(00:22):
watch what We Do in the Shadows. There's just too much.
There's too much stuff to watch right now, there is
way too much. I won't shade anybody ever for not
keeping up with something, because who can. I'm scared of
the person that keeps up with everything. But the opening
credits of What We Do in the Shadows has a
series of amazing spoofs of famous and not so famous
(00:44):
pieces of art, with the characters from the show painted
into them as though they have been around for hundreds
and hundreds of years because they are vampires. Almost every
piece of art we'll talk about some variation, is actually
based on an existing piece of art. Art art, art,
It's such such good stuff. Um. Two of those pieces
(01:09):
are based on the work of Gustav Corbet, and I
really have wanted to talk about him anyway, And that
was a good entree because I love that show. It
is just starting its fourth season. I think as we
published this episode, it should be out already, and it's
so fun. Obviously, uh not for all ages. It's a
(01:30):
very grown up show, but with adult themes. Similarly, this episode,
I will warn you at one point we were going
to talk about a painting that is pretty graphic and explicit.
If you have younger art historians or art enthusiasts with you, you,
I mean, you might want to preview it just for safety.
I don't know how you feel about it. Everybody's got
(01:51):
a different threshold. But Corbet was iconic even in his
own lifetime. He flew in the face of artistic convention.
He turned down awards, he ushered in a new movement
of realism in France. He was kind of like the
bad boy of mid nineteenth century Paris art scene. And
he also became embroiled in the country's political turmoil. So
(02:14):
that is who we were talking about today. Jean des
Saree Gustave Courbet was born on June tenth, eighteen nineteen,
in the small town of Ornan, France. This is in
the east of France, not far from the border with Switzerland.
His parents were Reggie and Silvi Udo Courbet and Regie
is sometimes described as a farmer, but to be clear,
(02:36):
he was a very successful farmer. This wasn't like a
small family farm. He wasn't doing farm work on somebody
else's farm. He had a large scale, multi property commercial
farm that included some really lucrative vineyards. Gustav also had
three younger sisters, Zoe, Zelli, and Juliet, and these daughters
(02:58):
appeared in a lot of their brothers paintings. Yeah he uh.
He liked to paint his friends and family in paintings,
as willis himself, which we'll talk about. After his early schooling,
Gustave enrolled at the College Royale and then attended a
fine art school in Besancon. His proclivity toward becoming an
artist wasn't really in line with what his parents had
(03:19):
in mind for him. They wanted him to pursue a
career in law. So when he was in his early
twenties the actual year this happened varies by source, but
they sent him to Paris to study law. He did
not do that. Uh. He is said to have been
really very very close to this family and to have
truly loved his parents. We'll talk a lot about his
(03:39):
letters home to his parents and his family, but he
really just did not see any path for himself in
life but art. So when he got to Paris, he
did not enroll in law school, unsurprising based on what
Holly just said, but he also didn't enroll in art school, though.
He went to the Louver and studied the art there
and also made contact with artists who lived in the
(04:01):
city so we could take private lessons in some cases
asked them for advice. In particular, he studied with romantic
painter Baron Charles von Steuben and finally confessed all of
this to his father. He said he could not be
a lawyer, he only wanted to be an artist. His
father's response was surprising and incredibly supportive. He wrote to
(04:23):
his son quote, if anyone gives up, it will be you,
not me. He assured his son that he would support
his ambitions, both emotionally and financially, and that he would
sell off everything he had if it came to that.
I don't think that's what he was expecting of his father.
So Courbet, with his father's blessing at this point, started
pursuing an art career. In earnest he wrote to his
(04:47):
parents quote, within five years, I must have a reputation
in Paris. But he still did not enroll at any
formal school. Instead, he was largely self taught and his
development was based largely un copying works of famous artists,
something a lot of artists did and still do to
gain technical skills informed their own style. He also, as
(05:08):
we said, took some private lessons, and he started submitting
his original works to the Academy de bosaar annual Salon
exhibit in in eighteen forty four. Just a few years
into this effort, one of his paintings was accepted. That
painting was Corbet with a Black Dog or self Portrait
with a black Dog. This is not a close up portrait,
(05:29):
but a full view of the subject that, of course
is Corbet himself. Obviously, he's seated with his entire body included.
And it's interesting because Corbet appears to be sitting on
the ground with an English spaniel standing partially on his lap.
But the point of view of the viewer is even
lower down than the subject close to the ground, so
(05:50):
Corbet appears to be looking down. He has on a
hat that has his upper face in shadow, and a
drapy coat that's flipped open at his leg to reveal
a yellow lining. Corbet wrote to his family of the
acceptance of this painting, saying quote, I have been admitted
to the exhibition and him highly delighted. It is not
the picture I should have preferred them to take, but
(06:12):
it makes no matter. They did me the honor of
hanging me well in the exhibition, and that is some compensation.
The following year, Corbet, spurred on by his success, submitted
five works for consideration for the Salon, but only one
small one was accepted. That's Le Guariro, and it features
(06:33):
a man in an almost reverse image of the black
dog portrait from the previous year we just described, once
again seated on the ground, but this time no dog
in his lap. He's creating a guitar. This is a
very romantic image, hearkening to an earlier time period, and
although it's not categorized as a self portrait, Corbet pretty
obviously used himself as a model. Corbet continued to submit
(06:57):
pieces for the Salon in the years after this, but
his success rate kind of dropped off and was pretty low,
but he remained undaunted. He was a very confident person.
That's probably a little easier when you know you have
financial backing. And he continued to paint, and he continued
to envision and plan his place in the art world.
Even in these early years of his career, Gustav was
(07:19):
really shrewd about crafting his image with the public and
with the art community. So he had come from a
wealthy family and he received a good education. Because he
came from the country, Parisians often assumed he was just
an uneducated peasant. He was totally happy to let people
do that because he knew it added to his mystique
(07:39):
as a painter. He saw every opportunity to like build
his life story in a way that would increase interest
in his work. We'll talk about one later on that
there's a little mind blowing to me. One of the
paintings that Corbet worked on starting in the eighteen forties
was one called The Wounded Man. This was another image
of the artist himself, this time in the romantic role
(08:00):
of a man reclining with his eyes closed, having suffered
an injury, presumably from a sword. This is a painting
that is often listed as having started in the eighteen
forties and being finished in the eighteen fifties. He didn't
normally take that long to make a painting, but it
wasn't considered finished until then because Corbet altered it significantly.
(08:23):
At one point, the hero in the image had been
accompanied by a woman leaning over his shoulder. She was,
it is believed, based on Virginie Binet, who modeled for
a lot of paintings for Corbet during a roughly ten
year long romantic relationship. The two of them were not married,
but they lived together as a couple. To all outward appearances,
(08:43):
they were as committed as a married couple. They had
a son together named Desiree Alfred Emil, but in the
early nineteen fifties Virginie moved away from Paris when she
and Corbet broke up, and she took their child with her.
And it seems that she and Corbet had no contact
after the breakup, and Corbet had then painted her out
(09:03):
of the wounded man, and he placed a sword in
her place in the painting. If you look at it,
it does look a little weird. Uh, it's not bad,
it's just a strange. It doesn't feel like that was
part of the original composition. He did not after this
have any long term, serious relationships. Although there were a
lot of women in his life, he kind of just
(09:26):
enjoyed playing the field, it seems. He wrote to a
friend of his relationships with women, quote, I am as
inclined to get married as I am to hang myself.
Corbet's relationship with the Salon waxed and waned in the
late eighteen forties. He went from that elation of having
felt that his work was well placed and that he
was just getting started. He went from that to a
(09:48):
long series of setbacks and feeling as though he would
never again gain recognition. Eighteen forty seven was especially rough
for him. He submitted three paintings than all three were rejected.
So we've been talking about the Salon and submitting every year.
And if you're wondering why didn't he just show his
art somewhere else, there really wasn't another avenue available at
(10:13):
this time in Paris. The Salon was the art show
of the year, and it was the place where patrons
went to purchase art and develop relationships with artists, so
they would have ongoing patronages in some place. Corbet had
written of it to his family, quote, I must exhibit
to make myself known, and unfortunately that is the only
exhibition in past years when I had not thoroughly mastered
(10:36):
my own style and was still painting to a certain extent.
In theirs. They accepted my work, but now that I
am myself, there is no hope for me. Other now
famous artists were similarly despondent at the way the Salon
jury was running things. Several had even met to brainstorm
how they might establish a new independent Salon, and that
(10:58):
included people like Delacroix and rue Show. In eighteen forty eight,
King Louis Philippe of France was forced to abdicate, and
later that year Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became the first president
of the Second French Republic. Of course, this was a
huge change for the country, but for Gustave Courbet and
other artists resulted in a very significant shift in how
(11:21):
the Salon was juried and had less rigid requirements for
subject matter and style. At the eight forty eight exhibition,
he had ten paintings accepted for showing a lot of
his paintings during this time reflected the change in France's
shifting socio political climate at a time when voting rights
were expanding for men anyway, and the right to work
(11:45):
was also adopted as a governmental reform. Corbet was painting
people at work in various trades. He also had the
very unique insight, or possibly conceit, to see that he
was the face of a huge change in art. He
wrote to his family quote, I'm about to make it
any time now, for i am surrounded by people who
(12:05):
are very influential in the newspapers and the arts, and
who are very excited about my painting. Indeed, we are
about to form a new school of which I will
be the representative in the field of painting. In a moment,
we will talk about Gustave Corbet's shift to painting landscapes
and pastorals and how his representation of the common man
(12:26):
became so important in art history. But first we will
pause for a sponsor break. So at this point Corbet
had been in Paris for roughly a decade trying to
make a name for himself. He had shifted from those
(12:47):
romantic portraits we talked about to doing some more different
types of art. And although he've had his father's financial
support and then the support of an art collector benefactor
named Alfred Bruya. No one could argue that he had
been idle during those ten years. He had finally earned
a gold medal in the Paris Salon, and that meant
that he didn't have to submit his work to Salon
(13:09):
juries for exhibition going forward. So he took a little
pause and he went home to Ornand to spend time
with his family. And this break from life in the
city really proved to be exactly what the artist needed,
and being back in the countryside inspired Corbet in a
whole new way. Two of Corbet's most famous paintings were
inspired by this visit home. The first was titled Le
(13:31):
cassier to Pierre, or the Stone Breakers. As its title suggests,
this is an image of an older man breaking stones
and a younger man carrying a basket of broken pieces
along the side of the road. There's an empty, dark
landscape behind them. This is an interesting image because not
only did it come to be seen as a clear
example of Corbet's desire to put realism front and center,
(13:56):
also shows everyday working people in vivid detail without roman
antasizing their lives. Was eventually recognized as raising questions about
France's socio economic structure. And that last bit is especially
interesting because while most art historians today would credit Corbet
with being very deliberate about making a social statement, and
(14:17):
Corbet himself later claimed that that was all intentional, Uh,
there have definitely been some write ups about this work
that suggests that it might have been a little bit
less calculated. Corbet had seen a man named Gagi, who
was a road mender working as the artist passed by
him in a carriage, and he had written to a
friend about it. Quote. Here is an old man of
(14:38):
seventy bending over his work with his hammer raised, his
body burned by the sun, his face shaded with a
wide straw hat. His core stiff breeches are all patched,
and his heels are showing through his stockings which once
were white in his broken old wooden shoes. Near him
is a young man, his skin burned brown. His filthy,
(14:59):
ragged shirt shows his side and his arms alas in
such low life, this is the beginning and the end.
Rarely can one find so complete an expression of poverty
and wretchedness. Corbet then invited Gudgie to his studio to
sit for him for the painting of the Stone Breakers,
the second famous work that was inspired by that trip
(15:22):
to or Not was a burial at or Not, which
he painted in eighteen fifty. This painting is massive, fift
centimeters by six hundred sixties centimeters or by ten ft.
It depicts his great uncle's funeral. There are more than
forty people in this composition, which is very dark, includes mourners, clergy,
(15:45):
and family. They're all gathered around an open grave. He
showed this at the eight fifty one Salon, much to
the chagrin of critics. The large dimensions that Corbet had
used were normally reserved for romantic subjects, so seeing such
a stark scene realistically painted on something so big I
was considered ghost and in poor taste. Even so, some
(16:08):
critics understood the importance of this as a moment of
massive change in art. One write up said that Corbet
had established himself as an artist quote in the manner
of a cannon ball which lodges itself in a wall.
That's such a great description. Uh. These two pieces look
so classic as pieces of art to modernize, not to
(16:31):
be confused with classicism. Um, but they just look like
when you look at them, you're like, yes, that's that
seems like famous old art. Uh. It can be difficult though,
to grasp just how radical they were considered in mid
nineteenth century France, at a time when the art world
was very much about showing the beauty of all things.
And indeed, we said Corbet had studied with a romantic painter,
(16:54):
but he had shifted gears, and he was painting things
that most people at the time would not consider beautiful,
and he was doing it with this very intense detail
and what is often described as urgency. These pastorals cemented
him in the eyes of the art and literature scene
of France as the major player in the new realism movement.
(17:15):
So we should level set for just a moment and
talk about realism and what it means, because it's easy
to assume it means one thing, when really it's a
pretty broad term. Realism in terms of art is not
necessarily about replicating a real world object in faithful accuracy,
although it can include that. The more important foundation of
(17:37):
it is depicting real things rather than something fanciful or imagined.
There are a lot of works of art that can
be put under this umbrella, going all the way back
to ancient Greek sculpture, but the term Realism didn't really
come into play as an artistic school of thought until
the nineteenth century, when Corbet was alive, and the realism
(17:58):
movement that Corbet is associated with was a rejection of
the Classicism and Romanticism that had been the standard for
French art for a very long time. He wrote about
this in a letter in eighteen sixty one in a
way that makes his feelings on this matter entirely clear,
writing quote, Painting is an essentially concrete art and can
(18:18):
consist only of the representation of things, both real and existing.
As he came to recognize that his work depicting the
French countryside had given him a reputation and deeper name recognition,
Corbet really leaned into it or none where he was born,
as in the province of Bourgeon and franc Compte, which
is in the eastern part of France, and it became
(18:41):
the star of a lot of Corbet's work. When Louis
Napoleon declared himself Emperor Napoleon the Third after staging a coup,
the atmosphere for art in Paris once again shifted. Although
Gustav Corbet had already been seen as controversial in his work.
As the government became more thor Matarian and a lot
(19:02):
more conservative in its taste, his work was perceived as
being downright confrontational. His painting Young Ladies of the Village,
which shows three women modeled by his sisters offering alms
to a young girl who is hurting cows, was critiqued
as a clumsy affront to social morais. When you look
at this painting today, you go, oh, that's lovely, but
(19:24):
people were real mad about it at the time. In
eighteen fifty four, Gustav started to work on a massive project,
and we used massive both literally and figuratively. The canvas
of the painting, which he completed in six weeks, is
three hundred sixty one by five centimeters that's eleven point
eight ft by nineteen point six feet, so similar to
(19:47):
the dimensions of a burial at or No, but the
subject matter is expansive as well. The painting is sometimes
called the Artist's Studio or the Painter's Studio, but the
full title is a pain Winter's Studio, A real allegory
summing up seven years of my life as an artist.
Corbet is at the center of the painting, working painting
(20:09):
a landscape of an area. Near or not behind him
is what appears to be an artist's model. It's a
naked woman with her dress at her feet, but he's
not painting her or even looking at her. Instead, she
is closely watching him. There's also a small child watching
him paint. So these three figures Courbet, the woman, and
the child form the central grouping of the image, and
(20:31):
the rest of the paintings casts of characters are separated
to the right and the left. The group to the
left is filled with the sort of rural characters that
populated much of Corbet's work. There's also a representation of
the Crucifixion of Christ on the left side as well.
Close to and kind of just behind the left side
of the painter's canvas in the image as he works.
(20:53):
On the right are Corbet's friends and patrons, including the
writer Charles Boudlare. This painting continues to be interpreted and
analyzed by art history scholars. In mixing allegory and reality,
Corbett seems to have laid out a puzzle for the
viewer to solve, but no one seems to agree on
what exactly the meaning of the piece is. This painting
(21:15):
was submitted for the eighteen fifty five exhibition in Paris,
and it was not accepted. After having achieved a level
of recognition where he had been able to place pieces
in the salon without jury approval, this was just a
slap in the face. Napoleon the third had directed that
only pleasant art to be included at the salon, and
the artist's studio was determined to be too demanding of
(21:38):
the viewer, and Corbett had eleven pieces accepted for the salon,
but he just took matters into his own hands to
get all of his paintings in front of the eyes
of the public. He rented a space near the exposition
and set up his own pavilion to showcase this huge painting,
as well as some other works. He called the the
(22:00):
Pavilion of Realism. The Pavilion of Realism was not a success.
Although many of his contemporaries and Eugene Delacroix in particular,
admired the ambition of this effort, it just wasn't well attended.
The public mostly saw this as a stunt, or like
a really expensive tantrum. Yeah, there's one exchange. I will
(22:22):
get it wrong because I'm just retelling it. I didn't
quote it here where there was a person who was like,
this is really a lot, like you really think highly
of yourself, and Corbet wrote back, do you not know
I'm the most arrogant person in Paris. He was just like,
it's just like this is how it is, dude. It's
all my paintings or nothing. Um. Incidentally, it was during
(22:42):
the eighteen fifties, when Corbett's fame was rapidly on the rise,
that he painted the two paintings that are spoofed in
the opening of What We Do in the Shadows. The
first in terms of when Corbet painted it, although I
think it appears second in the opening credits of the
show is a painting titled Madame august Quo, which was
a commissioned rendering of Mattila Deport as ordered by her husband.
(23:05):
This features a woman in almost full length wearing a
black plated gown with a striking green wrap. The television
show created one with the vampire Nadia as Madame deport
and in the show's opening there is also a matching
painting of Nadia's husband Laslow. Although Corbett did not paint
a companion piece to Madame august Quoc. The second Corbett
(23:26):
spoof in the TV shows opening credits once again features
Nadia in a recreation of Corbet's eighteen fifty six painting
woman in a riding hat. You'll also see that sometimes
listed as the Horsewoman. This was also a portrait commission.
Gustav was hired to paint Madame Clement Laurier as a
wedding gift to the bride from her husband. In this case,
(23:46):
Corbett did also paint a portrait of Monsieur Laurier, but
it is not that portrait that's used for Laslow in
the show. There's a matching portrait made that appears to
be an original creation to look more like a match
to the Madame are a painting. You can see both
of Corbet's original portraits at the met If you're interested
and want to do ah some sort of what we
(24:07):
do in the Shadows art crawl. That sounds great. In
a moment, we'll talk about Corbet's influence on the impressionists
who followed him and his involvement in politics. But first
we are going to hear from some of the sponsors
who keep Stuffy miss in history class going. Corbet went
(24:32):
to Germany for a visit in eighteen fifty six, and
there he made a lot of new connections with fellow artists.
Whereas France had come to see Corbet at this point
as a rabble rouser or sometimes even a nuisance, for
the way that he both ignored the traditions of the
art scene of the day and thumbed his nose at criticism,
it seems that the German sensibilities were more willing to
embrace his realism. He had painted a lot of works
(24:56):
that featured hunting parties, and those were particularly popular in Germany.
One of the interesting aspects of Corbet's realism is that
it wasn't confined to any particular subject matter. He painted landscapes,
he painted the lower classes at their work. He made
portraits of himself and other people. He painted nude studies
of women, quite a lot of them. His work in landscapes, though,
(25:19):
is often said to have paved the way for the
Impressionist movement, as he worked to capture things like the
sky as it was breaking into a storm over the
sea at the shoreline. He had started to bring in
the ideas that shaped Impressionism, particularly in his use of
color and light reflections. Whereas Corbet's realism was all about
capturing all and any subjects of the world. Impressionism would
(25:42):
kind of take that to a new space, as it
showed the world realistically but with a focus on the
waist that light and color can shift our perceptions of reality.
Throughout the eighteen sixties, Gustave enjoyed quite a bit of success.
He had become the figurehead not just for realism but
for breaking away from the establishment, and that really rebellious spirit,
(26:03):
combined with his skill, attracted a lot of collectors. And then,
though his relationship with the French government under Napoleon the
Third wasn't good, he was nominated as a recipient of
the French Legion of Honor in eighteen seventy. Kurbai turned
this down, writing quote, honor does not lie in a
title or a ribbon. It lies in actions and the
(26:24):
motives for actions. I honor myself by remaining faithful to
my lifelong principles. If I betrayed them, I should desert
honor to where it's mark now. He was not a
fan of Napoleon the Third's covernment at the end of
the Franco German War, also called the Franco Prussian War.
The Paris Commune formed as an insurrectionist group in response
(26:48):
to dissatisfaction at the armistice agreement that France had signed
with Germany. Emperor Napoleon the Third had entered the war
way over confident and France had not really been prepared,
and the Treaty of Frankfurt, France had had to concede
the annexation of Alsace and part of Lorraine, as well
as the payment of five billion francs to cover the
(27:08):
expenses of the German army's occupation of France. In the
briefest of terms, this meant that the Paris Commune was
against both the Army of Versailles and the German Army.
There was fear that the National Assembly was going to
reinstate the monarchy, which was opposite of what Parisians who
favored the Republic wanted, and Corbet aligned with the Commune
(27:29):
as it attempted to establish its own French government and
reject the Third Republic and Napoleon the Third. The Commune
had been established in the middle of March eighteen seventy one,
and it was suppressed in May, so it didn't last
very long, and Corbet had left the group early in
May before it was disbanded, because he actually found it
too extreme, so here in a quote later, he didn't
(27:51):
really like aligning with anybody, but that association with the
Paris Commune really hurt him. Kurbet had been elected president
of Artists Federation, and in that role it felt to
him to re establish the National Salon and to reopen
the museums which had been closed during the war. He
made an unusual move, though, and instead focused on monuments
(28:14):
outside of Paris, the palace at Fontainebleau, which had been
occupied by German forces, and the porcelain factory at Seve.
As all of this was going on, members of the
Paris Commune had decided to destroy a military monument in
the Place Vendome. It was a column that commemorated Napoleon
Bonapartes military and it was something Corbett had spoken of
(28:36):
with disdain on many occasions. When the Commune destroyed it
on May sixteenth, Corbet was believed to have spearheaded the move,
even though he had left the group before that happened.
He had circulated a petition to take that monument down
the year before, in eighteen seventy, so there was an
official record of him calling for its destruction. After the
(28:58):
commune was conclusively defeated by the Army of Versailles at
the end of May, Corbet was arrested in the first
week of June and put on trial as a political instigator.
Let's trial did not go well. The people who actually
had destroyed the monument had fled the country, although they
it had insisted that the artist had not been involved.
(29:19):
Even so, he was found guilty and sentenced to six
months in prison. There was also a fine, although because
Corbet had friends who were highly placed in the new
provisional government, the some of that fine was minimal. Yeah,
he was in this unique space where he kind of
disliked every established thing and fought against it. But he
also had friends in almost every position, you know, with
(29:42):
any alignment, because a lot of people were buying his
work and we're fans of his. Gaustaph Corbet was sent
to prison at Saint Pelagie, but he fell ill and
he was transferred to a medical facility near Paris to
finish his sentence. When that sentence ended and he was
a freeman again, he not stay in Paris. He instead
went back to his beloved countryside and family in Ornan.
(30:05):
He hoped to rest and rebuild his health and put
the whole thing behind him, but that was not to be.
But even while incarcerated, he had written letters to his
family that this whole ordeal had a bright side, which
is it was only going to drive up interest in
his work and enable him to raise his prices. In
eighteen seventy two, Adelphier, who had helped ensure Corbet's fines
(30:28):
weren't too steep after his trial, resigned from his presidency.
Let's put Bonaparte loyalists back in power. They did not
feel that Corbet had truly paid his debt to society,
so the French government sued Corbet for the money needed
to replace the destroyed monument. The trial for this was
(30:48):
never going to go his way. Corbet was fined five
hundred thousand fracs, and this was an absurd amount of money.
There was no way he could pay it. By the
time the judgment was passed down, all Corbett's assets had
already been seized, including all of his paintings. Everything he
owned had been taken by the French government. Yeah, I
(31:09):
have seen different numbers. Aside from that five hundred thousand francs,
but it's always many hundreds of thousand. It's kind of
like the absurdly high number of going Tracy. You owe
me twelve billion dollars. No, really, it was thirteen billions.
I mean, it's like it felt that absurd to him
because he had nothing. In addition to that, the government
(31:33):
had been watching his family and friends. They were all
under surveillance, and a number of artists that he was
associated with finally decided that being associated with him was
too dangerous and that he needed to be barred from
future salons and basically excommunicated from the city's art circles.
One of his friends in the art world wrote to
another the sad phrase, he must be dead to us.
(31:56):
So he left the country and headed for Switzerland. On
July seventy three, he left France and never returned. Initially,
Corbett went to Fleurier, which is only about ten kilometers
or a little more than six miles away from the
French border, but Gustave became anxious that this was just
too close to France, so he moved about eighty five
(32:18):
kilometers south to lave lach Lament. He didn't stay there either,
but also didn't travel very far before putting down roots.
He went just about two kilometers more south to Latoure
de Peals and purchased an inn, which he named Bonport
or Safe Harbor. Because he had left Paris, he actually
missed out on a move by some of his fellow artists,
(32:40):
which no doubt would have pleased him. In eighteen seventy four, Monet, Pizzarro, Cesanne,
and Renoir, tired of the Paris Salon, offering the only
chance at having their work publicly seen, put together their
own show, and that is actually the art exhibition that
the term Impressionists was coined at. Many art historians credit
(33:00):
Corbet's daring with helping to kick start the Impressionists. Some
have said it would have happened anyway, but it happened
about ten years earlier than it would have had Courbet
not been involved. In his final years, Corbet drank heavily
and neglected his health. The stress of the trials and
his incarceration, and having so many of his colleagues turned
(33:20):
their back on him that all took a toll. He
had hoped that he might be granted an amnesty and
be able to return to France, but Instead, the French
government directed him to pay for the cost of the
monument and ten thousand franc installments. It's like going, You'll
owe us forever. They also auctioned off all of his
art that they had seized. Corbet died on December thirty one,
(33:43):
eighteen seventy seven. He was only fifty eight, and the
cause of his death was listed as a dima that
was likely the result of drinking. Although he had never
gotten to return to France in life, in nineteen nineteen
his remains were moved from Switzerland to Ornand, where he
was reint heard in the same cemetery featured in his
painting A Burial at Ornand. A nineteen twelve collection of
(34:06):
Corbet's work with commentary by Leons Benedete, opens with the
line quote Corbet was one of Corbet's favorite subjects. It
has often been thrown up against him by men who
forget that an artist has great difficulty in finding a
model as convenient or as well studied as himself. But
it was said the painter, who delighted in making so
(34:27):
many of his contemporaries look uglier than they were, was
much nicer and more generous when it came to his
own face. The artist has no excuse save the masterpieces
that his rather exclusive indulgence has given us. Um we've
only talked about a couple of the self portraits here.
It's worth checking out more of them. The one that's
(34:50):
going to be on our social media is not one
of the ones that we have mentioned here, but is striking.
But really, Gustav Corbet gave the art world awful lot
more than beautiful paintings. His rebellious spirit, which was part
of his art really before he even became politically active,
led to a number of innovations and moves that scandalized
(35:11):
the art world at the time, but became very commonplace
as later generations of artists adopted them. We already talked
about his embrace of realism at a time when Romanticism
was the standard. His provocative paintings and behaviors were not accidental.
He had written early in his career that he had
a goal quote to change the public's taste and way
(35:32):
of seeing. No small task, for it means no more
and no less than overturning what exists and replacing it.
In addition to that, Corbet's nudes through the Paris art
establishment into a tizzy. He was certainly not at all
the first person to paint nude figures. Historical figures and
(35:52):
art were completely acceptable at the time as nudes, even
in very sensual scenarios. But his realism was very real.
It left nothing to the imagination. It wasn't romanticized. One
of his most well known examples of this is a
painting titled Origin of the World or Laura Jeanne du Monde,
which is a view of a woman's body lying on
(36:13):
a bed in which her genitalia are the focus of
the work. When he painted this in eighteen sixty six,
it was completely shocking. Was a private commission and it
didn't go on public display, but art critics certainly saw
it and they weighed in on it. There's debate around
it that continues until this day. The Origin of the
World passed from private collector to private collector over the years.
(36:36):
It was once even owned by Jacques Lacan, but it
didn't go on public display until nineteen eighty eight, when
it was shown at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
Today it's part of the collection of the muse d'Orsay,
and it's still Elicits really strong responses, but it, in
similar work set the stage for other artists to show
human bodies without the limitations that the art established had
(36:58):
placed on them before this work. There's also some fun
gossip about who the model for this may have been
that Holly is going to talk about on Friday. Yes,
that gossip is good. This is interesting because it's one
of those things that was considered pornographic when he painted
it in eighteen sixty six. There are still people today
who will say that straight up pornography and not art.
(37:20):
It's very controversial, so he sure did stay relevant in
that regard. Even in less explicit paintings. Corbet's detractors found
him to be scandalous. In eighteen seventy two, at a
time when the painter's life and country were in upheaval,
he painted a work called Sleep and This features two
naked women asleep in each other's arms. It was considered
(37:43):
so controversial when it was shown publicly that there was
actually a police report filed about it for indecency. As
Corbet was already on the outs with the French government
at this time. That report went into a file that
was being kept to document his life. On a more
technical note rather than relating to his subject matter. Corbet
was also one of the first artists to use a
(38:04):
palette knife and his fingers to apply the paint to
the canvas. Palette knives were strictly considered mixing tools at
the times. This is the fine art equivalent of applying
wall paint with a stir stick. For Corbet, though, it
was a different way to control his medium. Yeah, and
it was one of those things. I mean, obviously it
worked and he was very good at it. I think
(38:25):
it was um Sissan that said, like, his talent was
just limitless, and it was kind of a reflection of
him being able to do completely new things in ways
that resulted in just beautiful work. Today, Corbet's work is
recognized for its important in the development of Western art.
There are frequent exhibitions mounted featuring most of his works.
(38:45):
Two canvases, though are generally excluded. Both Burial at Ornan
and the Painter Studio are very large, which makes shipping difficult,
but they are also considered to be too delicate to
be shipped, so even though they are considered some of
his most important works, both remain in the permanent collection
of the muse d'Orsay, and they cannot be loaned out.
(39:06):
Another important Corbet painting that you will not see in
any collected exhibit today is the Stone Breakers because it
was unfortunately destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in World
War Two. Eight years before his death, Corbet was embroiled
in France's very volatile political shifts. He described himself and
his ideology in a single succinct passage in a letter
(39:29):
to a friend. It seems the right place to wrap
up his story. He wrote, quote, 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 regime except the regime of liberty. Gustav Corbett.
(39:54):
He's an interesting one. I have an interesting listener mail.
Cool because, as as I mentioned before, I'm still working
through a whole lot of boxes sent to my house
from the office. Many of our listeners have sent us
gifts for the last couple of years, and TI I'm
still opening. So I wanted to read this one and
(40:18):
say a huge thank you to our listener Greg, who
writes Dear History Ladies. I was recently catching up on
a significant backlog of podcasts and came across the one
you did on Guatemala and how the United Fruit Company
used to muck about in the politics of countries where
they had interests. Please find enclosed a model United Fruit
(40:38):
ship SS Telemanca, along with some other United Fruit items. Yes,
that's right, I'm pulling it out of the box. Carefully, sure,
crazy on camera, we got a model ship. Wow, um,
it's quite cool. Greg goes on, I build model ships
and integrate ephemera specific to the history of the ship
(41:00):
into the model's display case. He include a picture. I
did not make the United Fruit Company model, but I
found it in an antique shop and then accumulated there
were related items from other sources, thinking that I would
incorporate them all into a single display and resell it. However,
I've got too many models and two little time left.
So when I revisited the Talamanca project after hearing your podcasts,
(41:21):
you folks came to mind. I believe they used to
sell these models as a souvenir of your voyage, so
it's quite likely this was once on the Talamanca. This
particular example was in a very nasty state when I
acquired it. You would not know it. It is pristine now.
The deck has been cleaned and repainted, but years of
neglect took their toll. The inside of the cargo hatch
on the stern, which I didn't clean and repaint, represents
(41:43):
what the entire deck looked like. I think the fourth
of July menu is particularly interesting and invokes all kinds
of images of what it must have been like to
travel during this era. He included a menu. Obviously, I've
got no idea what the story behind the button would be.
If you've already got any of this stuff, I certainly
do not. Uh, it's that's cool, Greg Rights. Feel free
to regift, or you can just toss it all. It
(42:03):
doesn't really have much value. It was much more fun
to send it to you rather than sell it in
the yard sale. Take care, stay safe, and keep up
the great work, Greg. Greg, thank you so much. This
really is beautiful and it's super cool, and I have
to I am in the midst of doing a big
house reord, so I will find a cool place for it,
and then if Tracy wants it at some point, we'll
hand it off and we'll just trade it back and
forth for the rest of our lives. Um uh yeah.
(42:27):
It was one of those boxes that I was like,
so many of the boxes shipped to me, we're books,
and they're obviously like when you pick up a box
of books, you know that's what it is. And I
picked that box up and went, this is not books, uh,
and then opened it and was delighted by the giant
surprise inside. It was pretty If you would like to
write to us, we're changing offices, so right now emails
(42:48):
the way to come. You can do that at History
Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find
us on social media as missed in History, and we
are of course see to subscribe to. You can do
that on the I heart radio app or anywhere you
listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
(43:10):
Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
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