Shop art print and framed art Un enterrement à Ornans by Gustave Courbet

Un enterrement à Ornans (Burial at Ornans) was painted by Gustave Courbet between 1849 and 1850. The painter was 30 years old when he produced this large-scale work (315.45 × 668 cm), which was the subject of fierce controversy when it was exhibited at the 1850 Salon de Peinture: the painting was criticised for its vulgarity, and critics accused Courbet of painting "the ugly", "the trivial" and "the ignoble". Un enterrement à Ornans quickly became a manifesto of realism, of which Courbet was the leader"; a painter committed to art, but also to the Republic". Gustave Courbet completed Un enterrement à Ornans around 1850, at a pivotal time in French history and in the history of modern art. Louis-Philippe had been deposed in 1848, and in December of the same year Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the future Napoléon III, was elected President of the Republic. In this socially sensitive period, artists did not necessarily side with the working class and its struggle (Courbet did not take part in the Commune until 1871), but they did distance themselves from the bourgeoisie, which rejected new forms of art. The truly innovative artist tended to isolate and marginalise himself: after Bohemia, the random but free way of life of the Romantic artists, the second half of the 19th century saw the emergence of the image of the cursed artist, no longer at the service of the institutions and powers that be as before, and understood only by a small intellectual and artistic elite. Ornans, Gustave [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the classical period. It belongs to the realism style.

 

« Un enterrement à Ornans » is kept at Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Un enterrement à Ornans by Gustave Courbet on Wikipedia.