Paintings By Gustave Courbet

In 1855, an artist by the name of Gustave Courbet submitted fourteen paintings to be shown at the Exposition Universelle. Three of the paintings submitted for exhibition were turned away for lack of space. Including two of his most famous paintings “Burial at Ornans” and “The Artist's Studio”. Determined to showcase his works, courbet withdrew his eleven accepted submissions and erected The Pavilion of Realism (Pavillon du Réalisme)next door to the official International Exhibition (Exposition Universelle). Here he exhibited over thirty-five of his paintings, including Burial at Ornan and The Painters Studio. During his showcase tickets sales were low and those who did attend did so in order to ridicule and criticize infamous works such as
“In this early stage of his artistic career, Courbet painted a number of self-portraits, including “The Desperate Man” (1841) and “Self-Portrait with a Black Dog” (1842). The latter of which was accepted into the Salon of 1844, a prestigious, state-sponsored annual exhibition held in Paris”(BIO). Around 1848, Courbet would have an artistic

“breakthrough when ten of his paintings were accepted into the Paris Salon. Being awarded a second-class gold medal the following year meant he was no longer required to submit his paintings to a jury in order for them to be exhibited at the Salon (this special status lasted until a rule change in 1857)”(Mussee).
As Courbets fame began to grow, he gained great infamy surrounding his work. During the mid-1800s, paintings tended to depict large scenes of subject matter from history,the Bible or ancient mythology. Courbet much like other artists of this time worked on large canvases, however courbet chose to depict subjects from everyday life in the French countryside, such as his paintings simply titled “The Stone-Breakers,” a piece that depicts two anonymous manual laborers