English
For a long time, Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was thought of as a revolutionary painter. On the one side, was his professional status as a free man, whose desire was not to depend on any form of power or religion. There was also his political activism; he was an active participant in the Paris Commune, in which he entrusted himself with the administration of the museums of the city – which resulted in a prison sentence and a subsequent period of exile. On the other side, there is the scandal caused by some of his more notorious paintings, such as The Origin of the World, a graphic depiction of sex, and female nudity – or The Dream (also known as The Two Friends, or Laziness and Lust), which shows two naked women sleeping arm in arm, as though having just slept together, with one resting her head on the other´s neck.
However, probably the true revolution of Courbet´s work is not in his evident capacity to shock, and challenge the prudish, hypocritical bourgeoisie morality – but rather his way, more in line with the work of Caravaggio two centuries earlier, of opting for the truth, to the detriment of established notions of beauty; of accepting nothing but the most natural. It was one of Courbet´s exhibitions, in a shack in 1855, titled The Realism, which gave name to the entire realism movement, changing the course of modern art forever. And when Courbet painted himself in his shirtsleeves, like a vagabond, it shook the art world, for its unapologetic expression of the world as he saw it, and opened up a path for a new generation of artists who were prepared to ignore the bourgeoisie conventions in order to follow their own artistic conscience.
This status as a transformer of the idea of realism is what is hoped to be emphasized with the new exhibition Realisms, the trace of Courbet, on MNAC in Montjuic, Barcelona (http://www.mnac.cat/exposicions/exp_presents_f.jsp?lan=002&actualPage=null&id=00000055) until the 10th July.
In spite of the absence of The Origin of the World in the show, (which can still be seen via projection), the visitor is treated to wide, and impressive selection of Courbet´s work, which have come from museums such as the Petit Palais, the Metropolitan, the Musée d´Orsay, and the National Gallery. Other French and Catalan art works will be on display, including that by Murillo, Ribera, Rembrandt and Velázquez. The key objective is to identify the influence of Courbet on Catalan painting at the time, particularly upon the work of Ramon Martí Alsina, who was largely responsible for introducing this new form of realism to the world of Spanish art.
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Paul Oilzum
An exciting exhibition which invites us to reflect upon the realist aesthetic. We recommend a visit when you rent Barcelona accommodation
Translated by: Poppy
