Courbet: A Dream of Modern Art

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) is the preeminent representative of Realism and the spearhead of a style of painting committed to socially relevant issues. His lifelike portraits defy the artistic convention of idealization. The painter had another side, however: in his portraits, landscapes, drawings, and still lifes, he depicted a contemplative, meditative, inward-looking world, which stood in stark contrast to the fast-paced industrialization of the period. This publication introduces this “other” Courbet, one who, inspired by German Romanticism, succeeded in creating the vision of poetic modern art, as it was later refined not only by Cézanne and Picasso, but also by the Symbolists and Surrealists. His immersion into the depths of a personality, into the remoteness of pristine nature, as well as his thematization and dissolution of matter are reasons why many contemporary artists still make reference to his work.