European Modern Art: Gustave Courbet (T)

Age Group(s): Adults
Start Time: 2:00 PM
End Time: 3:00 PM

According to history, Gustave Courbet produced a series of quiet, painterly still-lifes featuring piles of fruit immediately after the bombardment and starvation of Paris by Otto von Bismarck's Prussian army and the collapse and execution of Courbet's fellow revolutionaries in the Paris Commune of 1871. Courbet was sentenced to prison for six months where he began painting his first still-lifes of fruit. Having lived through traumatic events and been on the losing side, it seems unimaginable that Courbet would avoid recent events in his paintings. At the very least, the subject of food, which had taken on desperate meaning for Parisians that winter, has become the main protagonist in his still-lifes. In their own time, however, these paintings wee seen as tame, painterly, and a somewhat idyllic return to nature for Courbet after the harrowing events in the capital. Had Courbet been tamed at last? Or is there something below the surface . . . ?

Join Catherine Walworth from The Ohio State University's History of Art Department for a talk about the last series of Courbet's 19th century paintings.
Library: Tremont Road - Main Library
Location: Friends Theater