Gustave Courbet was one of the avant-garde
or Realist artists. Courbet established realism and buried France art’s
romanticism with ‘A Burial at Ornans’ in 1849. It was exhibited at the Salon
and it is a life-size scale painting about 10 by 21 feet. At that time, this
painting gave shock and made dispute because of the size of the painting and
theme. In the Salon, this painting placed in one of the whole walls. Also, the
theme of this painting is a burial scene of unknown who lived in countryside
and there was no narrative or mention for this painting. Characters in the
painting are also different than other paintings. Characters have individual
features and it expressed through portrait, also people wearing weird clothes
which is from countryside.
In addition, there is no composition from meaning
of tradition. In this painting, there is no main character but many people weep
in various states of grief. Therefore, Courbet did not emphasize anything
through colors. In the painting, Courbet used the contrast between light and
shade. Dark green and cloudy gray color gave stern mood, also strong and
intense expressive technique could feel natural elements and it gave sense of density
and weighty. Also, usually we could see the line with movement of motion and depth
of space. However, in this painting, it is hard to find every normal thing. All
the people stare different directions and stand in line, so it looks flat just
like cut and paste pictures.
This kind of Courbet’s approach was one of
radical innovation. In this painting, he did not follow the process of
idealization but depicted ordinary theme. For express this theme, he used huge
canvas which is usually used for history paintings that have elegant and
dignity.
Even though, clergy helped to this funeral,
this painting is not gave a religious feeling. This is because, relative with form
of canvas. Traditionally, death or burial scene used vertical composition.
Vertical composition has a message that soul could go to heaven through it.
However, Courbet’s burial had no interest in soul of death. He only emphasized social
solidarity in the ground through the community for burial with long
horizontality composition.
There are about 50 people in the painting
and Courbet depicted a scene of burial. In the left side of the painting, people
who wearing a black clothes with white fabric are holding a coffin. In the
center, the grave-digger kneels by the hole in the ground, also to the left
lots of people were following for the funeral. According to the Stokstad,
Courbet’s depiction has none of the idealization of traditional history
painting; instead, it shows all the awkward, blundering numbness of a real
funeral, with an emphasis on its brutal, physical reality.
In the painting, there is no center or
surroundings, so it makes equality screen with same value. Therefore, it makes
democratic things with revolution in 1848. Courbet said that the basic of
realism is reject ideal thing and this can be release individual also it achieved
democratic. Therefore, basically, realism is democratic art.
I like Courbet's ability to capture the awkward somberness of a funeral in A Burial At Ornans. The varying faces in the crowd are so true and I think that is what might have turned people off from the piece, it is too real.
답글삭제-Tom
great job! I should've done option 1 it seems that everyone chose that one, and everyone did a great job on this assignment! I totally agree with you on this post. :)
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