{"product_id":"courbet-9780789209771","title":"Courbet","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) began his career in the late 1840s  French painting was dominated by two competing styles: neoclassicism  exemplified by Ingres and romanticism  exemplified by Delacroix. Courbet  a dynamic and boundlessly self-confident man  proud of his rural origins and guided by his strong Republican beliefs quickly established a third way. Rejecting the historical and literary subjects of the prevailing styles as too remote from actual experience  Courbet instead depicted scenes of everyday life  particularly among the peasants and the working class  with a naturalism then considered shocking. His paint handling was correspondingly direct: disdaining equally the idealized contours and cool tones of the neoclassicists and the expressive line of the romantics  he laid on his colors almost roughly  often with a palette knife instead of a brush. While CourbetGs brand of realism bears a family resemblance to those of his contemporaries Daumier and Millet  its scope is much broader: his masterworks range from the Burial at Ornans (1850)  a heroically scaled depiction of a villagers funeral  to the very different Origin of the World (1866)  a detailed close-up of the female anatomy  and he also painted many straight landscapes  portraits  and stilllifes.  This lucidly written monograph from noted art historian Segolene Le Men provides a new understanding of how Courbets life and milieu shaped his vast oeuvre. Le Men organizes her text both chronologically and thematically: while the five chapters correspond to the successive phases of Courbets career  each comprises several subsections that discuss individual aspects of his work. This hybrid approach allows Le Men to present an expansive and multifaceted view of Courbets realism  emphasizing its evolving relations with the various ideas and artistic currents of its time. With some three hundred stunning color illustrations  including all of Courbets most important paintings and many fine examples of his draftsmanship  this is the definitive study of a painter whose spirited pursuit of an independent aesthetic path has led many critics to call him \"the first modern artist.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45650400149557,"sku":"ByrdShop_0789209772","price":589.02,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780789209771.jpg?v=1781795580","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/courbet-9780789209771","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}