Gustave Courbet (Reveries)

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism

Gustave Courbet (Reveries) Details

About the Author Patrick Bade is a leading art historian and international guest speaker. Previous publications by Parkstone International include works on Beardsley, Renoir and Rops. Read more

Reviews

Bade, the author, focuses on the part of Courbet's work that shock and titillate - a large and fascinating body of work, but by no means the whole of Courbet's output. Bade places these works in the context of 19th century morality, where the English hardly monopolized Victorian reserve about matters of the body. He also frames Courbet in terms of the French art world of his time, where entry into major salons could advance an artist's career, and exclusion from them stagnate or kill that career.The book opens with Courbet's startling "Origin of the World," a direct, even confrontational tribute to women's potential for procreation and birth. It moves on through other works (like the cover image) that more-than-hint at physical love between women, or at physical love for sale. Some of these works use academic respectability or mythical reference to veil the models' nudity. Courbet's animal intensity always lies close to the surface, though, just as it did in biographical episodes that Bade relates.Although this book displays a beautiful and enticing selection from Courbet's ouvre, I find the presentation lacking. Even within the book's modest format, most of the works appear barely more than thumbnail sized. Page-sized and across-the-fold reproductions generally select only part of the image, then fade the colors enough that details sometimes become hard to pick out. The text, although helpful, does not qualify this book as a full biography or academic study. The odd and unsuccessful way of showing the paintings weakens this as a picture book, however. I'd like to have book that represents Courbet and his work. Although enjoyable, I find this book to do neither.-- wiredweird

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