Gustave Courbet was born on 10 june, 1819 in Ornans , a small town in the Jura region of eastern France.

His art training began at the age of 14, with lessons from pre Baud , a former pupil of the Neo-classical painter Baron Gros. His parents were hoping that Gustave would study law when he moved to the nearby university town of Besancon in 1837, but he swiftly enrolled at the academy,taking life classes under M.Flajoulot, another exponent of classicism. Two years later,Courbet moved to Paris , which in the mid nineteenth century had become the European centre not only for art but also for radicals and political activist of all kinds. He began studying at the studio of a now obscure painter, M.Steuben, copied widely from the pictures in the Louvre and channelled his energies into seeking success at the Salon. Between 1841 and 1847, only three of the 25 works he submitted were passed by the selection committee. REALISM:Realism was a movement in 19th century western culture that claimed to represent ordinary people and their everyday reality based on accurate observation. It challenged the centuries of tradition when the highest art aspired to idealize pictorial forms and heroic subjects. It acquired a democratic political dimension from its inclusiveness and the accessibility of its imagery to ordinary people universed in the classics but capable of recognizing Truth Realisms most coherent artistic manifestation was in the mid- nineteenth century, France. It followed romanticism, which encouraged artistic freedom and self expression, looking to nature as their source. COUBET AND REALISM:Coubet declared Realism is the Negation of the Ideal and that through it, he would arrive at freedom. He saw realism as a liberation of human consciousness from false ideology in order to take control of ones destiny .His ideas drew on the writings of his countryman and acquaintances, the radical philosopher Proudhon, who introduced materialist Social Thought to France in 1840s ,at the same time as Karl Marxs early writing.

Courbet realism dealt not with the perfection of line and form, but entailed spontaneous and rough handling of paint, suggesting direct observation, while portraying the irregularities in Nature .He depicted the harshness in life and in doing so challenged contemporary academic ideas of art. In the second half of the 19th century academic tradition required that large paintings should have only historic, biblical, mythological or allegorical subjects, Courbet ignored this convention by painting a familiar domestic world on two vast canvases. He considered that contemporary history, even it was that of ordinary people, merited the large formats. In declaring that historic art is in essence contemporary, Courbet expressed his desire to change History Painting. The original title of The Burial, the history of a Burial at Ornans , is symbolic of that point of view.

AFTER DINNER AT ORNANS After dinner at Ornans , began in small town of the title (artists birthplace ) but certainly completed in Paris during the winter of 1848-49. Description:- Four men in rough country clothes are shown sitting casually around a table following an afternoon meal. At the left, in profile , the painters father Eleonor Regis Corbet slumps in a chair , one leg crossed over the another , his left hand lightly holding a glass that rests on the table top , his right hand thrust deep into the pocket of his long jacket . He wears a peaked cap and at first seems almost asleep but it also seems like that he is listening to the figure on the extreme right. Courbets musician friend Alphonse Promayet , play the violin. On the far side of the table, sits a bearded figure who traditionally has been identified as Courbet himself; he rests his head on his hand and gazes abstractedly toward Promayet , as if engrossed in his playing . Almost directly above him , a checked cap hangs from a mantelpiece . The next figure, usually said to be Auguste Marlet, has his back to the beholder, though his body is turned somewhat toward the Violinist. He wears a broad-brimmed hat, is in the act of lightning his pipe. Promayet himself, seated slightly apart from others, inclines his head in concentration over his instrument as he draws his bow across the strings. The characters in the painting are absorbed in the music.

The After Dinner At Ornans has always been dark but its blacks have sunk and in many places it is almost unreadable. Nevertheless, there remains much to admire in the harmony of browns, grays, whites, and blacks within a narrow but marvellously nuanced range of values. The stone breakers, 1849 The two stonebreakers in Courbets painting are set against a low hill in the rural French town of Ornans, where the artist had been raised and continued to spend much of his time. The hill reaches to the top of canvas everywhere but the upper right corner, where a tiny patch of bright blue sky appears. The effect is to isolate these two labourers, and to suggest that they are physically and socio-economically trapped by their work. There in the painting is a old man of 70, bent over his task sledgehammer in air, his skin tanned by sun, his head shaded by a straw hat: his trousers of rough material are all patched, and in his cracked sabots, stockings that were once blue show his bare heels. There is also a young man with dusty head; his back and arms show through the holes in his filthy tattered shirt, his leather boots filled with mud. The old man is kneeling and the young man is behind him, standing, bearing energetically a basket of broken rock. Scattered here and there is a gear: a basket, a stretcher, a hoe. All this takes place in the blazing sun, at the edge of a highway ditch, the landscape fills the canvas. Like the stone themselves, Courbets brushwork is rough- more so than might be expected during the mid-nineteenth century. This suggests that the way the artist painted his canvas was in part a conscious rejection of highly polished, refined Neo-classicist style, that still dominated the French art in 1848. Perhaps most characteristics of Courbets style is his refusal to focus on the parts of the image that would usually receive the much of attention. Traditionally, an artist would spend much of time on hands, faces and foreground. Not Courbet! If we look carefully youll notice that he attempts to be even handed, attending to faces and rocks equally.

A BURIAL AT ORNANS, 1849-50

This huge panting contains nearly 60 life size figures, the townsfolk of Ornans, gathered together for a funeral -with male and female mourners separated according to the catholic custom. Men wear black suits and several of them in top hat, women wear white caps and black hoods. Many of them held a white handkerchief in their hands and mourn the death. An ordinary rural funeral painting had been captured in this painting with unbelievable realism. During those times, making a painting of a funeral or a similar event was traditionally reserved for heroes or religious people from the history. That is why many people offended that an unheard-of-before greatuncle was given such an honour and fame to his death through Courbets painting. A burial at ornans is a beautifully composed painting that acknowledges the importance of dignity in the life and death of an ordinary person. Grievers surround the open grave, which is at the centre front of the painting, alongside a priest, a gravedigger, friends and family who are mourning the deceased. In the background, the only thing, aside from the landscape and nature, that extends into the sky is a cross with the crucified body of the Christ that is held by a religious attendant. The colours of the painting are very dim and monochromatic, which match the mood of the event and the faces of the grievers, who are captured in the great detail. The only bright colour in the painting is seen in the white dog that is standing above the grave, looking back at the grieving women, and in the clothes of the holy men standing behind the priest.

SETS OF CHARACTERS:1. The Four Carriers:- They are equipped with white gloves , black outfits and big hats with round edges. They support the coffin surrounded by a white sheet and their faces away from the dead ( in countryside , they exposed the body for days before the burial, may be the offensive odour is highlighted by the paintor)

2. Five sex-ton: - They stand behind the priest, left of the coffin and dressed in white, one of them is cross bearer (7). The other two (5) and (6) are respectively a musician and craftsman shoemaker. The group of sextons is related to heaven, through the cross which surmounts the crowd and the cliffs in the backyard. 3. Two Children Choir:- The number 8 looks towards the carrier and number 9in the foreground bears the vase of the holy water . 4. Two Beadles:- They ensure the conduct of the religious ceremonies. The red colour of their hats and dress make them stand out of the crowd. 5.The Group Of men :-They are friends of Courbet from the village. 6.Two Revolutionaries:- They wear costumes worn by revolutionaries between 1792-93. The first (21) wears white spats and the second in the foreground (22) in the blue stockings. This face to face incongruity between the Republic and Church is to be linked with Political commitment of Coubet to be supporter of Commune of Paris, in 1871. 7. The Women:- (23), his mother, 24,25,26 , Three sisters of Courbet. 8. The priest number 10, dressed with great pomp, he reads the text of his breviary (book containing the prayers to be read daily by the priests) he holds in his hand. In a Burial at Ornans, mix together the themes of Death and religion through the funeral. THE PREPARATION OF THE CANVAS:- It is white giving a grainy shade of burned amber , become apparent when the layers of paint have dried. This technique had clouded the picture and attenuated cold tones (hands and faces were made with brush and highlighted with brown).

The Ubiquity of Black And White: - Courbet used the white satin sheet to catch a major imbalance in the web between the white minority and the black dominated. City-dwelling observers saw it as a glorification of vulgarity and were threatened by the uncomfortably life-like portrayal of a rural community: these were no homely peasants, but real individuals with a complex class structure of their own. The painting is steeped in Courbets own experience: it shows his family, friends local dignitaries and country people, and is set in the newly-consecrated cemetery on a hill outside his home town. This painting caused a tumult at the Salon. By painting on such a vast scale, Courbet turned everyday incident into a historic event. It is this monumental treatment of contemporary daily life which makes this work on of courbets major Realist paintings. Courbets reply to his Critics was << sils netaient pas beaux, je ne pouvais pas les faire beaux>>.

LES DEMOISELLES DE VLLAGE The demoiselles de village was Courbets first grand work to follow his hugest adventure in Realism . In 1851, the year after the public exhibition of the Enterrement , Courbet painted his demoiselles de village, in which he made the landscape , the most important part of the picture. The difference between the two paintings is the happy sunshine. Instead of solemn life size figures gathered about the open grave, he now introduced lovely feminine figures. Description:- Sunny landscapes combines with comely humans and charming animals to achieve a picture of rare wholesomeness and charm. The scene is laid in the country near Courbets birthplace, his beloved village of Ornans, the morning sun warms the turf on the hilltop, leaving deep shadows under the rocky crest. Below is sloping pasture land traversed by a trickling

brook, near which stand a heifer and a bull calf. The young cowherdess, in whose charge the beasts are is approached by three well dressed young ladies, one of whom offers bread from the basket. The young ladies are dressed in their country best pause in the sunlight so that one of them can offer some bread from their basket to a farm girl. A small dog focuses its attention on two cattles grazing nearby. The paintings narrative simplicity and artists comment, jai fait du grcieux, have encouraged art historians to accept the painting as a genre work. In fact paintings full title Les Demoiselles de village faisant laumone une gardeuse de vaches dans un vallon dOrnans lends itself to an interpretation of the work as a straightforward illustration of a charity theme. When painting was exhibited in Salon of 1852, it received the negative remarks like: cows were said to have come from Lilliput and dog was labelled as frightful little bastard. Everything about Les Demoiselles de village was criticized including clothes, looks and demeanour.

The Painters Studio, A Real Allegory Summing up Seven Years of my Artistic and Moral Life, 1855: Courbet described the painting as follows : Il est divis en deux parties. Je suis au milieu peignant. A droite, ce sont les actionnaires, c'est--dire les amis, les travailleurs, les amateurs du monde de lart. A gauche, lautre monde de la vie triviale, le peuple, la misre, la pauvret, la richesse, les exploits, les exploiteurs, les gens qui vivent de la mort . Its divided into three parts: at the center painter, model and the child. They form their own world. At the right are the people who live on life. At left: those who live on death. At right we can recognize the bearded profile of the art collector, Alfred Bruyas, behind him facing us is the philosopher Prudhon. The critic Champfleury is seated on stool while Baudelaire is absorbed in the book. The couple in the foreground personify art lovers and near the window, two lovers represent free love. The identification of the lover as Juliette Courbet might make this a symbol of brotherly love. The child reading a book represent

the studious child. On the side of the everyday life, we find a priest, a merchant, a hunter who somewhat resembles Napoleon 3 and even an unemployed worker and a beggar girl symbolising poverty .We can also see the guitar , the dagger and the hat which together with the male model condemn traditional art. There is a skull which rests on the newspaper symbolizing the death of the Paris press which praised academic art and ridiculed Courbet. It may also refer to the restriction of the journalistic freedom under the Empire. In this vast allegory, truly a manifesto painting , each figure has a different meaning. And in the middle of all stands Courbet himself, flanked by benevolent figures, a female muse, naked like truth, a child and a cat. The child looking at the painting is the symbol of innocence. Courbet himself paints a landscape of the Loue valley near Ornans. In the canter, the painter presents himself as a mediator. Courbet affirms the artists role in the society in an enormous scene on the scale of history painting. Coubet based the nude model in his painting on a photograph- probably from the same set as this one by Julien Vallou de Villeneuve. She is waiting to take up her position as a naked bather in the landscape. When faced with rejection of his painting, intended for the universal exhibition, Courbet built a pavilion of Realism at his own expense. CONCLUSION:<<I am fifty years old and i have always lived my life in freedom; let me end my life free; when i am dead let this be said of me: he belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, and to no academy, least of all to any regime except the regime of liberty.>>