Realism: Jean Desire Gustave Courbet

Born: June 1, 1819 in Ornans, France
Died: December 13, 1877
He was a French realism painter. He painted peasants and scenes of everyday life. At the age of 18 Gustave went to the Collège Royal at Besançon.In 1840 Courbet went to Paris to study law, but he decided to become a painter and spent much time copying in the Louvre.Of the 14 paintings Courbet submitted to the Paris World Exhibition of 1855, 3 major ones were rejected. Courbet's art of the mid-1860s no longer conveyed the democratic principles so clearly embodied in the earlier works. He turned his attention increasingly to landscapes, portraits, and nudes based, in part, on mythological themes. the government demanded the payment of 320,000 francs toward the reconstruction of the column and the public sale of his possessions. Already seriously ill with dropsy, Courbet was overwhelmed by the hopelessness of his situation, he died.