Gustave Courbet Biography
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was born on 10 June 1819 in Ornans, into a family of farmers. He acquired his first pictorial knowledge from his father, a professor at Ornans and a pupil of Antoine-Jean Gros. Gustave put his artistic interests before the faculty of law, in which he was enrolled. At the Louvre he got to know the works of Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Titian. At the Salon of 1848 he exhibited around ten paintings and drawings, achieving a certain notoriety. However, in 1849 "The Stonebreakers" (a work that was destroyed) and "Funeral at Ornans", presented at the Salon of 1850-51, raised harsh criticism for the artist's audacity in using a large format for scenes of everyday life and humble. The most representative canvas "The Artist's Atelier", in which the painter presented the inspiring principles of his art, was rejected by the Salon due to its dimensions deemed excessive. "L'origine du monde", from 1866, is one of Courbet's most provocative works due to its extraordinary erotic charge. In 1872 the artist left France, gripped by the habit of alcohol, and fell ill with cirrhosis of the liver which led to his death on 31 December 1877 in La Tour-de-Peilz.
