Task
Reading Pages
Q & A ‘S
Courbet’s Life
“Courbet apprenticed himself to the old masters, in particular to Rembrandt and the seventeenth-century Spaniards, and by the second half of the decade, to judge from self-portraits.”
Who did Courbet apprentice himself to?
“Courbet produced a series of monumental, realistic canvases, notably An After Dinner at Ornans (1848-49), the Stonebreakers (1849) and A Burial at Ornans (1849-50)”
What are the names of Courbet’s ‘monumental’ works?
An After Dinner at Ornans 
Stonebreakers 
A Burial at Ornans
Courbet’s Impact
“The notorious Burial at Ornans, with its enormous dimensions, deadpan portraits of local notables, flouting of traditional compositional principles, and brutally physical application of paint, epitomises that affront, which is largely why it created a scandal when it was exhibited in the long-delayed Salon of 1850-51.”
Why did the Burial at Ornans cause a scandal at the Salon?
“An account of Claude-Joseph Vernet’s contributions to the Salon of 1767, withholding until near the end of his commentary the information that the peopled landscapes he was enthusiastically describing were painted rather than real.”
Why did the Burial at Ornans cause a scandal at the Salon?
“T. J.Clark among them, believe that Courbet’s art declined markedly after the mid-1850s, becoming relatively undistinguished well before his establishment of a workshop for producing mediocre landscapes.”
What are the criticisms of Courbet’s work? (nb look at T.J Clark and Baudelaire?
“Courbet’s painting ceased to be a source of innovation within the French avant-garde and partly for that reason was sometimes described by contemporary critics as having lost its edge.”
What are the criticisms of Courbet’s work? (nb look at T.J Clark and Baudelaire?
Realistic Paintings
“A realist painting’s representation of a given scene was to all intents and purposes determined by the “actual” scene itself.”
What is the problem with conceiving of realist paintings as only a depiction of ‘what is there’?
“By the middle of the 1850s Baudelaire had turned against Courbet’s painting because realism as such seemed to him to leave no place for the exercise of the imagination.”
What is the problem with conceiving of realist paintings as only a depiction of ‘what is there’?
“Baudelaire’s attacks on realism in the name of the imagination terms of criticism that bear an altogether different relation to Courbet’s art than Baudelaire intended.”
What is the problem with conceiving of realist paintings as only a depiction of ‘what is there’?
“Painting have at their core a demand for the achievement of a new and paradoxical relationship between the work of art and its audience.”
What is the problem with conceiving of realist paintings as only a depiction of ‘what is there’?
“Painting successfully to persuade its audience of the truthfulness of its representations.”
What is the problem with conceiving of realist paintings as only a depiction of ‘what is there’?
The Theatre
“Painting as a whole, far from projecting a convincing image of the world, became what Diderot deprecatingly called a theatre.”
Why might both Fried and Diderot not like the theatre?
“Simultaneously, the death of theatre as Diderot knew it and the birth of something else.”
Why might both Fried and Diderot not like the theatre?
“Diderot’s conception of painting is profoundly dramatic.”
Why might both Fried and Diderot not like the theatre?
“Diderot maintained that it was necessary for the painting as a whole actively to “forget” the beholder, to neutralize his presence, to establish positively insofar.”
Why might both Fried and Diderot not like the theatre?
“The canvas encloses all the space, and there is no one beyond it,” Diderot wrote in his Pensées détachées sur la peinture (1776-81)
In this sense his conception of painting rested ultimately on the metaphysical fiction that the beholder did not exist.
Why might both Fried and Diderot not like the theatre?
“Diderot and his contemporaries regarded as the experiential test of completely successful painting”
Why might both Fried and Diderot not like the theatre?
Realistic & Imaginative?
“A painting, could be both realistic in effect and imaginative or metaphorical in its relation to its materials.”
Can a painting be both realistic and imaginative?
“The intimate connection between Diderot’s antitheatrical views and the painting of his time can best be brought out by looking briefly at representative works by two painters belonging to distinct artistic generations, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) and Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805).”
Can a painting be both realistic and imaginative?
‘Can a painting be both realistic and imaginative? Do you agree with Fried?’
Personally, I do agree with Fried in the sense that a painting can be realistic in effect and imaginative in materials. For instance portraying objects from observation realistically yet using unconventional materials when doing so. Yet I also think that paintings can also be realistic when portraying the subject matter but placed in an alternate composition like the art movement surrealism which remonstrates this well.
For instance, how the elements of the painting above represents all elements realistically yet in an imaginative composition.
‘Look at the two paintings: Burial and Artists Studio. Discuss their differences and explain why the artist studio might be the key to Fried point that art can be both realistic and imaginative?’
This painting is very realistic in the portrayal of objects and figures. Yet I would suggest imaginative in the scene depicted. Like how the artists studio would not have looked this way necessarily but may be a construct of the thoughts and processes which are created within the studio.
I would suggest, that this painting is very realistic in its betrayal of objects and figures also. However, I don’t believe that the scene depicts anything imaginative in its composition or construction.
References: Fried, M., In Absorption and theatricality: painting and beholder in the age of Diderot. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, pp. 1–8. https://allthatsinteresting.com/surrealism-art-iconic-surrealist-paintings https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Courbet https://images.google.com