Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting.
Best known as an innovator in Realism (and credited with coining the term), Courbet was a painter of figurative compositions, landscapes and seascapes. He also worked with social issues, and addressed peasantry and the grave working conditions of the poor. His work belonged neither to the predominant Romantic nor Neoclassical schools. Rather, Courbet believed the Realist artist's mission was the pursuit of truth, which would help erase social contradictions and imbalances.
Courbet associated his ideas of realism in art with anarchism, and, having gained an audience, he promoted democratic and socialist ideas by writing politically motivated essays and dissertations.
Towards the end of the 1860s, Courbet painted a series of increasingly erotic works such as Femme nue couchée. This culminated in The Origin of the World (L'Origine du monde) (1866), depicting female genitalia, and Sleep (1866), featuring two women in bed. While banned from public display, the works only served to increase his notoriety.
Courbet died, age 58, in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, of a liver disease aggravated by heavy drinking on 31 December 1877, a day before the payment of the first installment was due. (Bernard Noël, 1978) - wikipedia
Count de Choiseul's Greyhounds Movement: Realism Collection: The Saint Louis Art Museum Dimensions: 35 x 45 3/4 in (89 x 116.2 cm) Date: 1866 Artist: Gustave Courbet
