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Gustave Corbet
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Bright emotions
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Quiet emotions
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Sombre emotions
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Gustave Corbet
Date
c. 1843
Description
Creator of the image: Gustave Corbet
Date of the image creation: c. 1843
Medium of the image: Oil on canvas
Person depicted: Gustave Courbet
This dramatic self-portrait by Gustave Corbet, aptly referred to as The Desperate Man, was painted in the early 1840s, before Courbet had fully developed his signature realist painting style. The portrait still has the idealised forms of the Romantic school. Courbet portrays himself looking squarely at the viewer. His eyes are wide and wild, face flushed, eyebrows askew, and mouth partly open. His hands frantically grasp fistfuls of his own hair. There is anguish to his expression, a dramatic desperation. Rendered in a dark moody pallet with a textured mesh of rough-yet-realistic brushstrokes, Courbet portrayed himself in such a way as to push the limits of what a self-portrait was capable of doing. He aimed to cultivate an image of himself as an ambitious artist, both dark and determined.
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) was an important French painter who was considered a leading figure in the nineteenth-century realist movement. He was known for his political art and his fiery independence. For example, in 1870 Courbet wrote a fairly innocuous letter to the government suggesting that Vendôme Column, erected in honour of Napoleon’s conquests, be disassembled as a regretful imperial relic. In his words, it is ‘a monument devoid of all artistic value’. The government ignored his request, although the following year the Paris Commune broke out — with Courbet as an active member — and the column was destroyed. After the defeat of the Commune, and Courbet received a lenient prison sentence. The new government decided to rebuild the column at the personal expense of Courbet. The artist went into self-imposed exile in Switzerland. In 1877 he was told that he needed to pay yearly instalments of 10,000 francs for the next 33 years, up until his 91st birthday. On New Years Eve, 1877 — one day before the first instalment was due — Courbet died of liver disease aggravated by alcohol abuse.
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