Galerie Dreyfus
18
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GUSTAVE COURBET (ORNANS, 1819 – LA TOUR-DE-PEILZ, 1877)
The …
See original version (French)
18
-
GUSTAVE COURBET (ORNANS, 1819 – LA TOUR-DE-PEILZ, 1877)
The …
See original version (French)
Estimate €50,000 - €63,000
Voluntary lot
Description
GUSTAVE COURBET
(ORNANS, 1819 – LA TOUR-DE-PEILZ, 1877)
The Clearing
Circa 1850
Oil on canvas
45 x 65 cm.
Expert report
Jean – Jacques Fernier and Sara Faunce
Provenance
Christie’s auction, London, 13 July 2017.
These sheep, grazing peacefully on the riverbank, seem very small
against this woodland landscape, dwarfed by the trees that steal the limelight. The river on the left
marks the boundary of their grazing ground, whilst on the other side, the darkness of the undergrowth cuts off
any escape route. No shepherd is to be seen on the horizon. The spot seems safe. We find ourselves here in
a clearing that offers a glimmer of light amidst this dense vegetation. Yet the sun’s
rays struggle to penetrate it. The tiny patch of blue sky, at the top of the
composition, struggles to make headway between the mass of clouds and the canopy of trees.
As is often the case with Courbet, nature dominates; man is excluded, for it is the tree that is the
hero. Here, monumental in scale, they occupy the entire surface of the canvas and extend
well beyond its frame. The light coming from the background serves to magnify them through the play of backlighting,
which outlines their silhouettes and emphasises their mass. The clouds provide a counterpoint
to the speckled foliage. The painter plays on this similarity, lending texture and density to
all these elements.
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) was the leading figure of the Realist movement. The son of a farmer, he was very
close to nature. In Paris, at the age of 20, he began his apprenticeship in painting in the studio of
Charles de Steuben and was a regular visitor to the Louvre, where he admired 17th-century Dutch and
Spanish painting, whilst also copying Géricault. He then took a studio and became friends with
Baudelaire. After a trip to Holland, where he discovered Rembrandt and Frans Hals, he returned
home to Ornans to bring about a radical change in his painting, which he himself described
as ‘realist’. His masterpiece, A Burial at Ornans, now in the Musée d’Orsay, caused
a scandal at the 1851 Salon, as it was considered too realistic, even ‘socialist’. From then on, his
paintings caused offence; his female nudes, deemed too sensual, were considered degrading. He did not,
however, abandon landscape painting, travelling through the Languedoc, Normandy and the Charentes, where he painted and
even exhibited alongside Corot. An active member of the Paris Commune in 1871, he was ordered
to finance the reconstruction of the Vendôme Column, which he had helped to topple. Ruined,
he went into exile in Switzerland, where he resumed a prolific output to pay off his debts and
soon gained international renown.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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