April 18, 2026 • 40 mins
This 2022 episode covers how Courbet was iconic even in his own lifetime. He flew in the face of artistic convention, ushered in a new movement of Realism in France, and became embroiled in the country’s political turmoil.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday. Since this week's episodes on Peter Krapotkim brought
up the Paris Commune, we've picked today's classic with that
as a connecting point. We are talking about French artist
Gustav Kobe. At the start of this episode, we talk
about whether I had watched What We Do in the Shadows,
and I can now update my answer to yes, I
(00:22):
have watched all of it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh so good.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This originally came out July twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Frye.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
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 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 or
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
(01:08):
has a series of amazing spoofs of famous and not
so famous 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 variations,
(01:31):
is actually based on an existing piece of art.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Art art art.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's such good stuff. Two of those pieces are based
on the work of Gustav Corpe, 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 publish this episode,
it should be out already, and it's so fun. Obviously
(02:00):
not for all ages. It's a very grown up show
with adult themes. Similarly, this episode, I will warn you
at one point we are going to talk about a
painting that is pretty graphic and explicit. If you have
younger art historians or art enthusiasts with you, I mean,
you might want to preview it just for safety. I
(02:20):
don't know how you feel about it. Everybody's got 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
(02:42):
became embroiled in the country's political turmoil. So that is
who we are talking about today. Jean Desire Gustave Courbet
was born on June tenth, eighteen nineteen, in the small
town of Arnan, France. This is in the east of France,
not far from the border with Switzerland. His parents Reggie
and Sylvie udou Corbet, and Reggie is sometimes described as
(03:05):
a farmer, but to be clear, 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. Gustave also had three younger sisters, Zoe, Zelli,
(03:27):
and Juliet, and these daughters appeared in a lot of
their brother's paintings. Yeah, he liked to paint his friends
and family in paintings, as Phillis himself, which we'll talk about.
After his early schooling, Gustave enrolled at the College Royale
and then attended a fine art school in Besenzon. His
proclivity toward becoming an artist wasn't really in line with
(03:49):
what his parents had 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.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
He did not do that. Uh.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
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 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
(04:27):
to the Louver and studied the art there and also
made contact with artists who lived in the city so
we could take private lessons in some cases ask 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 lawyar.
(04:48):
He only wanted to be an artist. His father's response
was surprising and incredibly supportive. He wrote to his son, quote,
if anyone gives up, it will be you, not me.
He is short as 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
(05:08):
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 parents, quote,
within five years, I must have a reputation in Paris.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
But he still did.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Not enroll at any formal school. Instead, he was largely
self taught and his development was based largely on copying
works of famous artists, something a lot of artists did
and still do to gain technical skills and form their
own style. He also, as we said, took some private lessons,
and he started submitting his original works to the Academy
(05:44):
de Bouzare annual Salon exhibit, and in eighteen forty four,
just a few years into this effort, one of his
paintings was accepted. That painting was Courbet with a black
Dog or self portrait with a black Dog. This is
not a clue portrait, but a full view of the
subject that, of course is Korbe himself. Obviously, he's seated
(06:06):
with his entire body included.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
And it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Because Corbe 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 Kurbe appears
to be looking down. He has on a hat that
has his upper face and shadow, and a drapy coat
that's flipped open at his leg to reveal a yellow lining.
(06:32):
Corbe wrote to his family of the acceptance of this painting,
saying quote, I have been admitted to the exhibition and
am highly delighted. It is not the picture I should
have preferred them to take, but it makes no matter.
They did me the honor of hanging me well in
the exhibition, and that is some compensation. The following year,
eighteen forty five, Corbe, spurred on by his success, submitted
(06:56):
five works for consideration for the salon, but only one
small one was accepted. That's Le Guiterrero, and it features
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 cradling a guitar. This is a
very romantic image, hearkening to an earlier time period, and
(07:19):
although it's not categorized as a self portrait, Corbe pretty
obviously used himself as a model. Corbet continued to submit
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
(07:43):
to envision and plan his place in the art world.
Even in these early years of his career, Gustave was
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
(08:07):
do that because he knew it added to his mystique
as a painter. He saw every opportunity to build his
life story in a way that would increase interest in
his work. We'll talk about one later on that is
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
(08:29):
the artist himself, this time in the romantic role 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
(08:50):
finished until then because Korbe altered it significantly. At one point,
the hero in the image had been accompanied by a
woman leaning over his shoulder. Was it is believed, based
on Virginie Binet, who modeled for a lot of paintings
for Corbe during a roughly ten year long romantic relationship.
The two of them were not married, but they lived
(09:11):
together as a couple. To all outward appearances, 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 Corbe 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 of the Wounded Man,
(09:36):
and he placed a sword in her place in the painting.
If you look at it, it does look a little weird.
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
(09:57):
kind of just 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. Corbe'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.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Just getting started.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
He went from that to a 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, and 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,
(10:41):
there really wasn't another avenue available at 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,
(11:02):
and unfortunately that is the only exhibition in past years
when I had not thoroughly mastered 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.
(11:23):
Several had even met to brainstorm how they might establish
a new independent Salon, and that included people like de
la Croix and Rousseau. 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
(11:45):
for the country, but for Gustave Courbet and other artists
resulted in a very significant shift in how the salon
was churied and had less rigid requirements for subject matter
and style. At the eighteen forty exhibition he had ten
paintings accepted for showing a lot of his paintings during
this time reflected the change in France's shifting sociopolitical climate.
(12:10):
At a time when voting rights were expanding for men anyway,
and the right to work 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
(12:32):
about to make it any time now, for I am
surrounded by people who 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 Gustav Corbet's shift
(12:52):
to painting landscapes and pastorals and how his representation of
the common man became so important in art history. First,
we will pause for a sponsor break. So at this
point Corbet had been in Paris for roughly a decade
(13:15):
trying to make a name for himself. He had shifted
from those romantic portraits we talked about to doing some
more different types of art, and although he had his
father's financial support and then the support of an art
collector benefactor named Alfred Bruia, 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
(13:37):
that meant that he didn't have to submit his work
to Salon 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 Corbe
in a whole new way. Two of Corbet's most famous
(13:58):
paintings were inspired by this at home. The first was
titled Le Cassieurs de 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
(14:19):
image because not only did it come to be seen
as a clear example of Corbe's desire to put realism
front and center, it also shows everyday working people in
vivid detail without romanticizing their lives. Was eventually recognized as
raising questions about France's socioeconomic structure. And that last bit
(14:39):
is especially interesting because while most art historians today would
credit Corbe with being very deliberate about making a social statement,
and 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. Corbe he had seen a man named Gagie,
(15:01):
who is a road mender working as the artist, passed
by him in a carriage, and he had written to
a friend about it.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Here is an old man of seventy bending over his
work with his hammer raised, his body burned by the sun,
his face shaded with a wide straw hat, His coarse,
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
(15:28):
skin burned brown. His filthy, 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
Gagie to his studio to sit for him for the
painting of the Stonebreakers. The second famous work that was
(15:52):
inspired by that trip to or Not was a burial
at or Not, which he painted in eighteen fifty. This
painting massive three hundred and fifteen centimeters by six hundred
and sixty centimeters or twenty one feet by ten feet.
It depicts his great uncle's funeral. There are more than
forty people in this composition, which is very dark and
(16:14):
includes Mourner's clergy and family. They're all gathered around an
open grave. He showed this at the eighteen fifty one Salon,
much to the chagrin of critics. The large dimensions that
Korbe had used were normally reserved for romantic subjects. So
seeing such a stark scene realistically painted on something so
(16:34):
big I was considered ghosh and in poor taste. Even so,
some critics understood the importance of this as a moment
of massive change in art. One write up said that
Korbe had established himself as an artist quote in the
manner of a cannon ball which lodges itself.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
In a wall. That's such a great description.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
These two pieces look so classic pieces of art to modernize,
not to be confused with classicism, but they just look
like when you look at them, you're like, yes, that
seems like famous old art.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It can be difficult, though, to.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
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, 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, in
(17:34):
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.
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
(17:58):
necessarily about replicating a real world object in faithful accuracy,
although it can include that. The more important foundation of
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
(18:21):
come into play as an artistic school of thought until
the nineteenth century, when Korbe was alive, and the realism
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
(18:42):
way that makes his feelings on this matter entirely clear,
writing quote, painting is an essentially concrete art and can
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 reputee haiti and deeper
name recognition. Corbe really leaned into it Ornon, where he
(19:05):
was born, as in the province of Borgeo and Franche Compte,
which is in the eastern part of France, and it
became 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 Gustave Corbet had already been seen as controversial in
(19:28):
his work, as the government became more authoritarian and a
lot 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 herding cows, was critiqued
(19:49):
as a clumsy affront to social morase. When you look
at this painting today, you go, oh, that's lovely, but
people were real mad about it at the time. In
eighteen fifty five, Gustav started to work on a massive project,
and we use massive both literally and figuratively, the canvas
of the painting, which he completed in six weeks, is
(20:10):
three hundred and sixty one by five hundred ninety eight centimeters.
That's eleven point eight feet by nineteen point six feet,
so similar to the dimensions of a burial at Ornan,
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 Painter's Studio, A real
(20:32):
allegory summing up seven years of my life as an artist.
Corbet is at the center of the painting working it's
painting a landscape of an area near or non 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
(20:56):
watching him paint. So these three figures Corbet, the woman
in the ch child form the central grouping of the image,
and the rest of the painting's casts of characters are
separated to the right.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And the left.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
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. On the right are Corbet's friends
and patrons, including the writer Charles Baudlare. This painting continues
(21:30):
to be interpreted and analyzed by art history scholars. In
mixing allegory and reality, Corbet 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 was submitted for the eighteen fifty
five exhibition in Paris and it was not accepted. After
(21:51):
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 be included at
the salon, and the artist's studio was determined to be
too demanding of the viewer, and Corbet had eleven pieces
(22:14):
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 this the Pavilion of Realism. The Pavilion of
(22:34):
Realism was not a success. Although many of his contemporaries
and Eugene de la Croix 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 get it
wrong because I'm just retelling it. I didn't quote it
(22:56):
here where there was a person who was like, and
this is really a lot, like you really think highly
of yourself, and Corbe 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 are nothing. Incidentally, it was during the
eighteen fifties, when Corbe's fame was rapidly on the rise,
(23:17):
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 Corbe painted it, although I
think it appears second in the opening credits of the
show is a painting titled Madame auguste Quoke, which was
a commissioned rendering of Matild de port as ordered by
her husband. This features a woman in almost full length
(23:38):
wearing a black pleated gown with a striking green rap.
The television show created one with the vampire Nadia as
Madame de Port and in the show's opening there is
also a matching painting of Nadya's husband Laslow, although Corbe
did not paint a companion piece to Madame Augustequoque. The
second Corbe spoof in the TV show's opening credits once
(23:59):
again features Nadya in a recreation of Corbe'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, Corbe did also paint a portrait of
(24:20):
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 Laurier painting. You can
see both of Corbe's original portraits at the met if
you are interested and want to do some sort of
what we do in the Shadows art crawl, that sounds great.
(24:42):
In a moment, we'll talk about Corbe'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 keeps Stuffy missed in history class going. Corbet
(25:03):
went 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
(25:27):
of works 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
(25:49):
work in landscapes, though, 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
(26:11):
the world, Impressionism would kind of take that to a
new space, as it showed the world realistically, but with
a focus on the ways that light and color can
shift our perceptions of reality. Throughout the eighteen sixties, Gustav
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, combined with his skill,
(26:35):
attracted a lot of collectors, and 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. Kurbae turned this down, writing quote,
Honor does not lie in a title or a ribbon.
It lies in actions and the motives for actions. I
(26:57):
honor myself by remaining faithful to my life lifelong principles.
If I portrayed them, I should desert honor to wear
its mark. Yeah, he was not a fan of Napoleon
the Third's government. At the end of the Franco German
War also called the Franco Prussian War, the Paris Commune
formed as an insurrectionist group in response to dissatisfaction at
(27:20):
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 in the
Treaty of Frankfurt, France had had to concede the annexation
of Alsace and part of Lorentz, as well as the
payment of five billion francs to cover the expenses of
(27:40):
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 as it attempted to
(28:01):
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 really like aligning
(28:23):
with anybody, but that association with the Paris Commune really
hurt him. Krebet had been elected president of the Artists' Federation,
and in that role it fell 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 outside of Paris, the Palace
(28:47):
at Fontainebleau, which had been occupied by German forces, and
the porcelain factory at sev. As all of this was
going on, members of the Paris Commune had decided to
destroy a military monument in the place ven Dome.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
It was a.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Column that commemorated Napoleon Bonaparte's military and it was something
Corbet had spoken of with disdain on many occasions. When
the Commune destroyed it on May sixteenth, Corbe 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,
(29:23):
so there was an official record of him calling for
its destruction. After the Commune was conclusively defeated by the
Army of Versailles at the end of May, Corbe was
arrested in the first week of June and put on
trial as a political instigator. This trial did not go well.
The people who actually had destroyed the monument had fled
(29:44):
the country, although they had insisted that the artist had
not been involved. Even so, he was found guilty and
sentenced to six months in prison. There was also a fine,
although because Corbe had friends who were highly placed in
the new provisional government.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Some of that vine was minimal.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
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 any alignment, because a lot of people were buying
his work and were fans of his. Gustav Corbet was
sent to prison at Seinte Pelagie, but he fell ill
(30:23):
and he was transferred to a medical facility near Paris
to finish his sentence. When that sentence ended and he
was a free man again, he did not stay in Paris.
He instead went back to his beloved countryside and family
in Ornan. He hoped to rest and rebuild his health
and put the whole thing behind him, but.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
That was not to be.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
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, Adelfierre, who had helped ensure Corbet's fines
weren't too steep after his trial, resigned from his presidency
(31:03):
was put Buonaparte 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
never going to go his way. Corbe was fined five
hundred thousand francs, and this was an absurd amount of money.
(31:26):
There was no way he could pay it. By the
time the judgment was passed down, all of Corbe's assets
had already been seized, including all of his paintings. Everything
he owned had been taken by the French government. Yeah,
I have seen different numbers aside from that five hundred
thousand francs, but it's always many hundreds of thousand frecks.
(31:48):
It's kind of like the absurdly high number of Going Tracy.
You owe me twelve billion dollars. No, really, it was
thirteen billion. I mean, it's like it felt that absurd
to him because he had nothing. In addition to that,
the government had been watching his family and friends. They
were all under surveillance, and a number of artists that
(32:09):
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, so he left the country and headed for Switzerland.
(32:30):
On July twenty thirty, eighteen seventy three, he left France
and never returned. Initially, Corbet went to Fleurier, which is
only about ten kilometers or a little more than six
miles away from the French border, but Gustav became anxious
that this was just too close to France, so he
moved about eighty five kilometers south to Levee la Clemm.
(32:53):
He didn't stay there either, but also didn't travel very
far before putting down roots.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
He went just about.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Two kilometers more south to Latour de Pills 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, which no doubt
would have pleased him. In eighteen seventy four, Monette, Pizarro,
Sesan and renoirre tired of the Paris Salon, offering the
(33:19):
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 Corbe's daring with helping to kickstart the Impressionists. Some
have said it would have happened anyway, but it happened
about ten years earlier than it would have had Corbet
(33:39):
not been involved. In his final years, Corbe drank heavily
and neglected his health. The stress of the trials and
his incarceration, and having so many of his colleagues turn
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
(34:00):
government directed him to pay the cost of the monument
in ten thousand frank installments going You'll Owe Us Forever.
They also auctioned off all of his art that they
had seized. Corbet died on December thirty first, eighteen seventy seven.
He was only fifty eight, and the cause of his
death was listed as a DMA that was likely the
(34:21):
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 reinterred in
the same cemetery featured in his painting A Burial at Ornand.
A nineteen twelve collection of Corbet's work with commentary by
Leons Benedictte opens with the line quote Corbet was one
(34:43):
of Courbet'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 many of his contemporaries life
uglier than they were, was much nicer and more generous
(35:04):
when it came to his own face. The artist has
no excuse save the masterpieces that his rather exclusive indulgence
has given us. We've only talked about a couple of
the self portraits here. It's worth checking out more of them.
The one that's going to be on our social media
is not one of the ones that we have mentioned here,
(35:26):
but is striking. But really, Gustav Corbet gave the art
world an 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 the art world at the time, but
became very commonplace as later generations of artists adopted them.
(35:48):
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 of seeing. No small task, for
it means no more and no less than overturning what
(36:09):
exists and replacing it. In addition to that, Corbet's nudes
threw the Paris art establishment into a tizzy. He was
certainly not at all the first person to paint nude figures.
Historical figures in art were completely acceptable at the time
as nudes, even in very sensual scenarios, But his realism
(36:30):
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
Laurie Jeanne du Monde, which is a view of a
woman's body lying on 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
(36:52):
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 the continues until this day. The
Origin of the World passed from private collector to private
collector over the years. It was once even owned by
Jacquela Khan, but it didn't go on public display until
nineteen eighty eight when it was shown at the Brooklyn
(37:15):
Museum in New York. Today it's part of the collection
of the Musee Dorse and it still elicits really strong responses.
But it and similar work set the stage for other
artists to show human bodies without the limitations that the
art established had placed on them before this work. There's
also some fun gossip about who the model for this
(37:35):
may have been that Holly's going to talk about on Friday.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yes, that gossip is good.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
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. 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
(38:02):
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 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
(38:25):
went into a file that was being kept to document
his life on a more technical note, rather than relating
to his subject matter. Corbe was also one of the
first artists to use a palette knife in his fingers
to apply the paint to the canvas. Palette knives were
strictly considered mixing.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Tools at the time.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
This was the fine art equivalent of applying wall paint
with a ststick. 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 it was Sizen
that said, like his talent was justless 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,
(39:08):
Corbe's work is recognized for its important in the development
of Western art. There are frequent exhibitions mounted featuring most
of his works. Two canvases, though are generally excluded. Both
Burial at Ornand and the Painter's Studio are very large,
which makes shipping difficult, but they are also considered to
be too delicate to be shipped, so even though they
(39:29):
are considered some of his most important works, both remain
in the permanent collection of the Musee d'arcail and they
cannot be loaned out. Another important Corbe 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 II. Eight years before his death,
(39:50):
Corbe was embroiled in France's very volatile political shifts. He
described himself and his ideology in a single succinct passage,
and a letter to a friend 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,
(40:10):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Gustavecorbet, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
If you'd like to send us a note, our email
addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can
subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Happy Saturday. Since this week's episodes on Peter Krapotkim brought
up the Paris Commune, we've picked today's classic with that
as a connecting point. We are talking about French artist
Gustav Kobe. At the start of this episode, we talk
about whether I had watched What We Do in the Shadows,
and I can now update my answer to yes, I
(00:22):
have watched all of it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh so good.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This originally came out July twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Frye.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
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 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 or
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
(01:08):
has a series of amazing spoofs of famous and not
so famous 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 variations,
(01:31):
is actually based on an existing piece of art.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Art art art.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's such good stuff. Two of those pieces are based
on the work of Gustav Corpe, 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 publish this episode,
it should be out already, and it's so fun. Obviously
(02:00):
not for all ages. It's a very grown up show
with adult themes. Similarly, this episode, I will warn you
at one point we are going to talk about a
painting that is pretty graphic and explicit. If you have
younger art historians or art enthusiasts with you, I mean,
you might want to preview it just for safety. I
(02:20):
don't know how you feel about it. Everybody's got 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
(02:42):
became embroiled in the country's political turmoil. So that is
who we are talking about today. Jean Desire Gustave Courbet
was born on June tenth, eighteen nineteen, in the small
town of Arnan, France. This is in the east of France,
not far from the border with Switzerland. His parents Reggie
and Sylvie udou Corbet, and Reggie is sometimes described as
(03:05):
a farmer, but to be clear, 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. Gustave also had three younger sisters, Zoe, Zelli,
(03:27):
and Juliet, and these daughters appeared in a lot of
their brother's paintings. Yeah, he liked to paint his friends
and family in paintings, as Phillis himself, which we'll talk about.
After his early schooling, Gustave enrolled at the College Royale
and then attended a fine art school in Besenzon. His
proclivity toward becoming an artist wasn't really in line with
(03:49):
what his parents had 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.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
He did not do that. Uh.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
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 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
(04:27):
to the Louver and studied the art there and also
made contact with artists who lived in the city so
we could take private lessons in some cases ask 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 lawyar.
(04:48):
He only wanted to be an artist. His father's response
was surprising and incredibly supportive. He wrote to his son, quote,
if anyone gives up, it will be you, not me.
He is short as 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
(05:08):
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 parents, quote,
within five years, I must have a reputation in Paris.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
But he still did.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Not enroll at any formal school. Instead, he was largely
self taught and his development was based largely on copying
works of famous artists, something a lot of artists did
and still do to gain technical skills and form their
own style. He also, as we said, took some private lessons,
and he started submitting his original works to the Academy
(05:44):
de Bouzare annual Salon exhibit, and in eighteen forty four,
just a few years into this effort, one of his
paintings was accepted. That painting was Courbet with a black
Dog or self portrait with a black Dog. This is
not a clue portrait, but a full view of the
subject that, of course is Korbe himself. Obviously, he's seated
(06:06):
with his entire body included.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
And it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Because Corbe 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 Kurbe appears
to be looking down. He has on a hat that
has his upper face and shadow, and a drapy coat
that's flipped open at his leg to reveal a yellow lining.
(06:32):
Corbe wrote to his family of the acceptance of this painting,
saying quote, I have been admitted to the exhibition and
am highly delighted. It is not the picture I should
have preferred them to take, but it makes no matter.
They did me the honor of hanging me well in
the exhibition, and that is some compensation. The following year,
eighteen forty five, Corbe, spurred on by his success, submitted
(06:56):
five works for consideration for the salon, but only one
small one was accepted. That's Le Guiterrero, and it features
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 cradling a guitar. This is a
very romantic image, hearkening to an earlier time period, and
(07:19):
although it's not categorized as a self portrait, Corbe pretty
obviously used himself as a model. Corbet continued to submit
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
(07:43):
to envision and plan his place in the art world.
Even in these early years of his career, Gustave was
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
(08:07):
do that because he knew it added to his mystique
as a painter. He saw every opportunity to build his
life story in a way that would increase interest in
his work. We'll talk about one later on that is
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
(08:29):
the artist himself, this time in the romantic role 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
(08:50):
finished until then because Korbe altered it significantly. At one point,
the hero in the image had been accompanied by a
woman leaning over his shoulder. Was it is believed, based
on Virginie Binet, who modeled for a lot of paintings
for Corbe during a roughly ten year long romantic relationship.
The two of them were not married, but they lived
(09:11):
together as a couple. To all outward appearances, 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 Corbe 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 of the Wounded Man,
(09:36):
and he placed a sword in her place in the painting.
If you look at it, it does look a little weird.
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
(09:57):
kind of just 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. Corbe'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.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Just getting started.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
He went from that to a 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, and 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,
(10:41):
there really wasn't another avenue available at 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,
(11:02):
and unfortunately that is the only exhibition in past years
when I had not thoroughly mastered 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.
(11:23):
Several had even met to brainstorm how they might establish
a new independent Salon, and that included people like de
la Croix and Rousseau. 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
(11:45):
for the country, but for Gustave Courbet and other artists
resulted in a very significant shift in how the salon
was churied and had less rigid requirements for subject matter
and style. At the eighteen forty exhibition he had ten
paintings accepted for showing a lot of his paintings during
this time reflected the change in France's shifting sociopolitical climate.
(12:10):
At a time when voting rights were expanding for men anyway,
and the right to work 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
(12:32):
about to make it any time now, for I am
surrounded by people who 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 Gustav Corbet's shift
(12:52):
to painting landscapes and pastorals and how his representation of
the common man became so important in art history. First,
we will pause for a sponsor break. So at this
point Corbet had been in Paris for roughly a decade
(13:15):
trying to make a name for himself. He had shifted
from those romantic portraits we talked about to doing some
more different types of art, and although he had his
father's financial support and then the support of an art
collector benefactor named Alfred Bruia, 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
(13:37):
that meant that he didn't have to submit his work
to Salon 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 Corbe
in a whole new way. Two of Corbet's most famous
(13:58):
paintings were inspired by this at home. The first was
titled Le Cassieurs de 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
(14:19):
image because not only did it come to be seen
as a clear example of Corbe's desire to put realism
front and center, it also shows everyday working people in
vivid detail without romanticizing their lives. Was eventually recognized as
raising questions about France's socioeconomic structure. And that last bit
(14:39):
is especially interesting because while most art historians today would
credit Corbe with being very deliberate about making a social statement,
and 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. Corbe he had seen a man named Gagie,
(15:01):
who is a road mender working as the artist, passed
by him in a carriage, and he had written to
a friend about it.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Here is an old man of seventy bending over his
work with his hammer raised, his body burned by the sun,
his face shaded with a wide straw hat, His coarse,
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
(15:28):
skin burned brown. His filthy, 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
Gagie to his studio to sit for him for the
painting of the Stonebreakers. The second famous work that was
(15:52):
inspired by that trip to or Not was a burial
at or Not, which he painted in eighteen fifty. This
painting massive three hundred and fifteen centimeters by six hundred
and sixty centimeters or twenty one feet by ten feet.
It depicts his great uncle's funeral. There are more than
forty people in this composition, which is very dark and
(16:14):
includes Mourner's clergy and family. They're all gathered around an
open grave. He showed this at the eighteen fifty one Salon,
much to the chagrin of critics. The large dimensions that
Korbe had used were normally reserved for romantic subjects. So
seeing such a stark scene realistically painted on something so
(16:34):
big I was considered ghosh and in poor taste. Even so,
some critics understood the importance of this as a moment
of massive change in art. One write up said that
Korbe had established himself as an artist quote in the
manner of a cannon ball which lodges itself.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
In a wall. That's such a great description.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
These two pieces look so classic pieces of art to modernize,
not to be confused with classicism, but they just look
like when you look at them, you're like, yes, that
seems like famous old art.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It can be difficult, though, to.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
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, 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, in
(17:34):
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.
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
(17:58):
necessarily about replicating a real world object in faithful accuracy,
although it can include that. The more important foundation of
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
(18:21):
come into play as an artistic school of thought until
the nineteenth century, when Korbe was alive, and the realism
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
(18:42):
way that makes his feelings on this matter entirely clear,
writing quote, painting is an essentially concrete art and can
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 reputee haiti and deeper
name recognition. Corbe really leaned into it Ornon, where he
(19:05):
was born, as in the province of Borgeo and Franche Compte,
which is in the eastern part of France, and it
became 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 Gustave Corbet had already been seen as controversial in
(19:28):
his work, as the government became more authoritarian and a
lot 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 herding cows, was critiqued
(19:49):
as a clumsy affront to social morase. When you look
at this painting today, you go, oh, that's lovely, but
people were real mad about it at the time. In
eighteen fifty five, Gustav started to work on a massive project,
and we use massive both literally and figuratively, the canvas
of the painting, which he completed in six weeks, is
(20:10):
three hundred and sixty one by five hundred ninety eight centimeters.
That's eleven point eight feet by nineteen point six feet,
so similar to the dimensions of a burial at Ornan,
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 Painter's Studio, A real
(20:32):
allegory summing up seven years of my life as an artist.
Corbet is at the center of the painting working it's
painting a landscape of an area near or non 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
(20:56):
watching him paint. So these three figures Corbet, the woman
in the ch child form the central grouping of the image,
and the rest of the painting's casts of characters are
separated to the right.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And the left.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
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. On the right are Corbet's friends
and patrons, including the writer Charles Baudlare. This painting continues
(21:30):
to be interpreted and analyzed by art history scholars. In
mixing allegory and reality, Corbet 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 was submitted for the eighteen fifty
five exhibition in Paris and it was not accepted. After
(21:51):
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 be included at
the salon, and the artist's studio was determined to be
too demanding of the viewer, and Corbet had eleven pieces
(22:14):
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 this the Pavilion of Realism. The Pavilion of
(22:34):
Realism was not a success. Although many of his contemporaries
and Eugene de la Croix 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 get it
wrong because I'm just retelling it. I didn't quote it
(22:56):
here where there was a person who was like, and
this is really a lot, like you really think highly
of yourself, and Corbe 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 are nothing. Incidentally, it was during the
eighteen fifties, when Corbe's fame was rapidly on the rise,
(23:17):
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 Corbe painted it, although I
think it appears second in the opening credits of the
show is a painting titled Madame auguste Quoke, which was
a commissioned rendering of Matild de port as ordered by
her husband. This features a woman in almost full length
(23:38):
wearing a black pleated gown with a striking green rap.
The television show created one with the vampire Nadia as
Madame de Port and in the show's opening there is
also a matching painting of Nadya's husband Laslow, although Corbe
did not paint a companion piece to Madame Augustequoque. The
second Corbe spoof in the TV show's opening credits once
(23:59):
again features Nadya in a recreation of Corbe'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, Corbe did also paint a portrait of
(24:20):
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 Laurier painting. You can
see both of Corbe's original portraits at the met if
you are interested and want to do some sort of
what we do in the Shadows art crawl, that sounds great.
(24:42):
In a moment, we'll talk about Corbe'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 keeps Stuffy missed in history class going. Corbet
(25:03):
went 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
(25:27):
of works 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
(25:49):
work in landscapes, though, 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
(26:11):
the world, Impressionism would kind of take that to a
new space, as it showed the world realistically, but with
a focus on the ways that light and color can
shift our perceptions of reality. Throughout the eighteen sixties, Gustav
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, combined with his skill,
(26:35):
attracted a lot of collectors, and 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. Kurbae turned this down, writing quote,
Honor does not lie in a title or a ribbon.
It lies in actions and the motives for actions. I
(26:57):
honor myself by remaining faithful to my life lifelong principles.
If I portrayed them, I should desert honor to wear
its mark. Yeah, he was not a fan of Napoleon
the Third's government. At the end of the Franco German
War also called the Franco Prussian War, the Paris Commune
formed as an insurrectionist group in response to dissatisfaction at
(27:20):
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 in the
Treaty of Frankfurt, France had had to concede the annexation
of Alsace and part of Lorentz, as well as the
payment of five billion francs to cover the expenses of
(27:40):
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 as it attempted to
(28:01):
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 really like aligning
(28:23):
with anybody, but that association with the Paris Commune really
hurt him. Krebet had been elected president of the Artists' Federation,
and in that role it fell 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 outside of Paris, the Palace
(28:47):
at Fontainebleau, which had been occupied by German forces, and
the porcelain factory at sev. As all of this was
going on, members of the Paris Commune had decided to
destroy a military monument in the place ven Dome.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
It was a.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Column that commemorated Napoleon Bonaparte's military and it was something
Corbet had spoken of with disdain on many occasions. When
the Commune destroyed it on May sixteenth, Corbe 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,
(29:23):
so there was an official record of him calling for
its destruction. After the Commune was conclusively defeated by the
Army of Versailles at the end of May, Corbe was
arrested in the first week of June and put on
trial as a political instigator. This trial did not go well.
The people who actually had destroyed the monument had fled
(29:44):
the country, although they had insisted that the artist had
not been involved. Even so, he was found guilty and
sentenced to six months in prison. There was also a fine,
although because Corbe had friends who were highly placed in
the new provisional government.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Some of that vine was minimal.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
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 any alignment, because a lot of people were buying
his work and were fans of his. Gustav Corbet was
sent to prison at Seinte Pelagie, but he fell ill
(30:23):
and he was transferred to a medical facility near Paris
to finish his sentence. When that sentence ended and he
was a free man again, he did not stay in Paris.
He instead went back to his beloved countryside and family
in Ornan. He hoped to rest and rebuild his health
and put the whole thing behind him, but.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
That was not to be.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
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, Adelfierre, who had helped ensure Corbet's fines
weren't too steep after his trial, resigned from his presidency
(31:03):
was put Buonaparte 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
never going to go his way. Corbe was fined five
hundred thousand francs, and this was an absurd amount of money.
(31:26):
There was no way he could pay it. By the
time the judgment was passed down, all of Corbe's assets
had already been seized, including all of his paintings. Everything
he owned had been taken by the French government. Yeah,
I have seen different numbers aside from that five hundred
thousand francs, but it's always many hundreds of thousand frecks.
(31:48):
It's kind of like the absurdly high number of Going Tracy.
You owe me twelve billion dollars. No, really, it was
thirteen billion. I mean, it's like it felt that absurd
to him because he had nothing. In addition to that,
the government had been watching his family and friends. They
were all under surveillance, and a number of artists that
(32:09):
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, so he left the country and headed for Switzerland.
(32:30):
On July twenty thirty, eighteen seventy three, he left France
and never returned. Initially, Corbet went to Fleurier, which is
only about ten kilometers or a little more than six
miles away from the French border, but Gustav became anxious
that this was just too close to France, so he
moved about eighty five kilometers south to Levee la Clemm.
(32:53):
He didn't stay there either, but also didn't travel very
far before putting down roots.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
He went just about.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Two kilometers more south to Latour de Pills 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, which no doubt
would have pleased him. In eighteen seventy four, Monette, Pizarro,
Sesan and renoirre tired of the Paris Salon, offering the
(33:19):
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 Corbe's daring with helping to kickstart the Impressionists. Some
have said it would have happened anyway, but it happened
about ten years earlier than it would have had Corbet
(33:39):
not been involved. In his final years, Corbe drank heavily
and neglected his health. The stress of the trials and
his incarceration, and having so many of his colleagues turn
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
(34:00):
government directed him to pay the cost of the monument
in ten thousand frank installments going You'll Owe Us Forever.
They also auctioned off all of his art that they
had seized. Corbet died on December thirty first, eighteen seventy seven.
He was only fifty eight, and the cause of his
death was listed as a DMA that was likely the
(34:21):
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 reinterred in
the same cemetery featured in his painting A Burial at Ornand.
A nineteen twelve collection of Corbet's work with commentary by
Leons Benedictte opens with the line quote Corbet was one
(34:43):
of Courbet'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 many of his contemporaries life
uglier than they were, was much nicer and more generous
(35:04):
when it came to his own face. The artist has
no excuse save the masterpieces that his rather exclusive indulgence
has given us. We've only talked about a couple of
the self portraits here. It's worth checking out more of them.
The one that's going to be on our social media
is not one of the ones that we have mentioned here,
(35:26):
but is striking. But really, Gustav Corbet gave the art
world an 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 the art world at the time, but
became very commonplace as later generations of artists adopted them.
(35:48):
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 of seeing. No small task, for
it means no more and no less than overturning what
(36:09):
exists and replacing it. In addition to that, Corbet's nudes
threw the Paris art establishment into a tizzy. He was
certainly not at all the first person to paint nude figures.
Historical figures in art were completely acceptable at the time
as nudes, even in very sensual scenarios, But his realism
(36:30):
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
Laurie Jeanne du Monde, which is a view of a
woman's body lying on 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
(36:52):
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 the continues until this day. The
Origin of the World passed from private collector to private
collector over the years. It was once even owned by
Jacquela Khan, but it didn't go on public display until
nineteen eighty eight when it was shown at the Brooklyn
(37:15):
Museum in New York. Today it's part of the collection
of the Musee Dorse and it still elicits really strong responses.
But it and similar work set the stage for other
artists to show human bodies without the limitations that the
art established had placed on them before this work. There's
also some fun gossip about who the model for this
(37:35):
may have been that Holly's going to talk about on Friday.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yes, that gossip is good.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
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. 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
(38:02):
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 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
(38:25):
went into a file that was being kept to document
his life on a more technical note, rather than relating
to his subject matter. Corbe was also one of the
first artists to use a palette knife in his fingers
to apply the paint to the canvas. Palette knives were
strictly considered mixing.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Tools at the time.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
This was the fine art equivalent of applying wall paint
with a ststick. 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 it was Sizen
that said, like his talent was justless 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,
(39:08):
Corbe's work is recognized for its important in the development
of Western art. There are frequent exhibitions mounted featuring most
of his works. Two canvases, though are generally excluded. Both
Burial at Ornand and the Painter's Studio are very large,
which makes shipping difficult, but they are also considered to
be too delicate to be shipped, so even though they
(39:29):
are considered some of his most important works, both remain
in the permanent collection of the Musee d'arcail and they
cannot be loaned out. Another important Corbe 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 II. Eight years before his death,
(39:50):
Corbe was embroiled in France's very volatile political shifts. He
described himself and his ideology in a single succinct passage,
and a letter to a friend 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,
(40:10):
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.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Gustavecorbet, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
If you'd like to send us a note, our email
addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can
subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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