id: 148739 accession number: 1976.18 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.18 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:39.619000 Landscape with Large Trees, c. 1870. Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877). Black chalk with stumping on brown wove paper; sheet: 38.1 x 52.4 cm (15 x 20 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 1976.18 title: Landscape with Large Trees title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1870 creation date earliest: 1865 creation date latest: 1870 current location: creditline: Dudley P. Allen Fund copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: black chalk with stumping on brown wove paper department: Drawings collection: DR - French type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: Fernier 48; Güdel 54 --- CREATORS * Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877) - artist Born into a wealthy farmer's family, Courbet began his training in 1831 at the Petit Séminaire in Ornans where, beginning in 1833, he studied under "le père Baud," who had been a pupil of Gros (q.v.). He was befriended by poet Max Buchon, who would later write the first article on Courbet, claiming that he was the artist for the people. In 1837, hoping that Gustave would become a lawyer, his father sent him to the Collège Royal in Besançon. Despite his father's ambitions, Courbet began to study art at the academy there with Charles-Antoine Flageoulot (1774-1840), a former student of David (q.v.). By 1839 Courbet had moved to Paris to pursue a career in art. He refrained from entering the École des Beaux-Arts, studying instead briefly with Charles de Steuben (1788-1856) and preferring to learn how to paint by copying the works of the Old Masters in the museums. Courbet also wanted to work after life models and enrolled at the Académie Suisse. He began to submit paintings to the Salon, the majority of which were rejected. In 1846-47 Courbet traveled to the Netherlands where he studied the works of Rembrandt and Hals. The following year ten of his paintings were shown at the Salon, and together with his friends Baudelaire, Champfleury, and Buchon he became labeled a "realist." Courbet's paintings shown at the 1851 Salon-Stonebreakers (1849, formerly Dresden Gemäldegalerie, destroyed during World War II), Peasants of Flagey (1850-55, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon), and The Burial at Ornans (1849-50, Musée d'Orsay, Paris)-elicited criticism. Because Courbet represented the peasants as he saw them, without ennobling or idealizing them, his works met with disapproval. Moreover, these representations of peasants appeared at a time when the upper classes felt threatened by social unrest and by the instability of the republic. In 1855 Courbet financed an independent Pavillon du Réalisme near the Universal Exposition, where he showed his Painter's Studio (1854-55, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). He began to travel extensively, including visits to Gent, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Cologne, Mainz, and Strasbourg. He returned to Germany in 1858, and while in Frankfurt, he began to paint the stag hunts he witnessed. The following year he visited the Normandy coast, painting seascapes, some of which became almost abstractions. Courbet turned to still lifes in 1862-63 when visiting the Saintonge area, yet he still continued to create landscapes and portraits. By 1870 he was offered the Legion of Honor but refused it because of his opposition to the imperial government. During the Paris Commune from March to May 1871, Courbet became an active member of the government. As chairman of the Commission for the Protection of the Artistic Monuments of Paris, he suggested the Vendôme Column be dismantled because it was an imperial symbol. The Commune decided instead to topple the column. When the Commune was defeated, Courbet was held responsible for this act of vandalism and was jailed for six months. In 1873 the government decided to rebuild the column at Courbet's expense. Unable to pay and fearful of being arrested, Courbet moved to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life in exile. --- measurements: Sheet: 38.1 x 52.4 cm (15 x 20 5/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: brown wove paper (discolored) watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed, lower left, in black crayon: Gustave Courbet. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review, 1976 opening date: 1977-02-01T05:00:00 Year in Review, 1976. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 1-March 6, 1977). title: Courbet und Deutschland opening date: 1978-10-19T04:00:00 Courbet und Deutschland. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany (organizer) (October 19-December 17, 1978); Städelsches Kunstinstitut im Städtischen Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main, Franfurt am Main, Germany (January 17-March 18, 1979). title: Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings opening date: 1979-05-31T04:00:00 Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 31-August 19, 1979). title: Treasures on Paper opening date: 1988-05-10T04:00:00 Treasures on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-July 24, 1988). title: French Drawings from the Collection opening date: 1994-12-13T05:00:00 French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995). title: Corot, Courbet und die Maler von Barbizon: “Les Amis de la nature.” opening date: 1996-02-04T05:00:00 Corot, Courbet und die Maler von Barbizon: “Les Amis de la nature.”. Haus der Kunst, Munich (organizer) (February 4-April 21, 1996). title: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2023-01-20T05:00:00 Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Machwitz Collection, Vitry-le-François, France date: ?-? footnotes: citations: (Galerie Peter Nathan, Zurich), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) date: ?-1976 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1976- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1976." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 2 (1977): 39-78. page number: Reproduced: p. 52, no. 52 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152676 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 211 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n231 Fernier, Robert. La Vie et l’œuvre de Gustave Courbet: Catalogue raisonné. Lausanne: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1978. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 2: p. 302-3, no. 48 url: Hofmann, Werner, and Klaus Herding. Courbet und Deutschland. Exh. cat. Hamburg: Kunsthalle, 1978. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 357, no. 326 url: Heilmann, Christoph H., Michael Clarke, and John Sillevis. Corot, Courbet und die Maler von Barbizon: “Les Amis de la nature.” Exh. cat. Munich: Haus der Kunst, 1996. page number: Mentioned: p. 389, no. c16; Reproduced: p. 371 url: Güdel, Niklaus Manuel, Anne-Sophie Poirot, and Philippe Clerc. Gustave Courbet: Les Dessins. Paris: Les Cahiers dessinés, 2019. page number: Mentioned: pp. 175, 361, no. 54; Reproduced: pp. 37 (as no. 49), 177 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1976.18/1976.18_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1976.18/1976.18_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1976.18/1976.18_full.tif