LITMIR.BIZ

      Francis Wey couldn’t help being taken aback by this placid statement, and the rest of the conversation simply increased his astonishment. Courbet struck him as, “quite odd, as if rebelling… against most every theory, and steeped in a wilful ignorance, calculated to create an effect.” He railed against the masters, against pupils who subjected themselves before them like slaves, and declared that it was high time to change all that. But the writer did not criticise him for these opinions so unlike his own, because of the “evidence of his extraordinary worth” spread before him, among which were Man with a Pipe and the future success at the Salon of 1849, as well as After Dinner at Ornans, which had caught his eye as soon as he entered.

      That Salon of 1849 was highly important in the history of art since the exhibiting artists were allowed to elect the jury themselves. The experiment was enormously successful, if one judges by the results; Courbet was awarded the second-place medal. He had submitted seven works, including landscapes, portraits, and a genre scene, all of which were accepted.

      The great success went to the After Dinner at Ornans. The scene takes place in the Courbet kitchen, near the immense fireplace, on a dark afternoon, when all the objects are bathed in chiaroscuro. The meal has just finished and the table is still covered with the remains. The musician Promayet is standing, playing the violin; Courbet is listening absently; his father, with a glass in his hand, is asleep, and Adolphe Marlet carefully takes an ember from the fireplace to light his pipe. The overall impression is rustic, calm, serene, restful; the heads are all excellent portraits and everything, even down to the big bulldog asleep under a chair, shows how Courbet was able to render his observations with fluidity and truth. The After Dinner at Ornans is one of the great masterpieces of the nineteenth century.

      Courbet was much talked about in the newspapers and magazines. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, F. de Lagenevais criticised him for having painted a genre scene on a five-foot canvas. In his view, using life-size proportions was wrong; one should look at life through the small end of the glass, and furthermore, make it poetic. As for Champfleury, he sounded an epic note; “Courbet has taken the Salon by storm with nine paintings. Yesterday, no one knew his name; today it on everyone’s lips. Such a sudden success has not been seen in ages.” Concerning the After Dinner at Ornans, “this painting could be boldly hung in the Flemish museums, amid the great crowds of burgomasters by Van der Helst, and it would hold its own… Courbet, before long, will be one of our greatest artists.”

      It was claimed that this work had been painted with litharge on the background, which was fading away. It should be recognised that the subject called for this penumbra, since the scene is set in the late afternoon, perhaps at twilight, after the hunt. In a letter to Francis Wey of 28 November 1849, Courbet even referred to this painting as the Soiree à Ornans (Evening at Ornans). It is undeniable that it looked dark; but this is true of all the paintings of this period, in particular those by Courbet, who at that time was fully into his période noire. As he explained to Francis Wey, at the Salon of 1849 itself:

      Thus did he justify, once again, the description that he gave of himself, as “the pupil of nature and feeling,” and which his next works would bear out even further.

      21. Portrait of H. J. Van Wisselingh, 1846.

      Oil on panel, 57.2 × 46 cm.

      Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.

      The First Successes of Realism

      22. Self-Portrait, c. 1850.

      Oil on mounted canvas, 50 × 40 cm.

      Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon.

      Courbet’s First Successes

      At the beginning of the summer, Courbet went to stay in Louveciennes for two months, at the home of Francis Wey. As he put it himself, he needed to “fatten up”. According to the Mémoires inédits, he was skinnier and paler than ever, but once in the country he soon recovered his appetite. He became the life of the party at meals with his unexpected and original jokes, his high spirits and affability attracting neighbours and friends, who were anxious to be invited and curious to see and hear him, although they were likewise sure that at “every conversation they would be called idiots in a most congenial way.”

      In Louveciennes, he wasted no time, painting on everything, even cigar boxes, most often with a palette knife. The artist did not limit himself to scenes of Louveciennes and the environs. One morning he painted Madame Wey, who was then convalescing after a long illness, sitting in front of a wooded hillside in a misty atmosphere. “This sort of miniature, painted broadly, is the lone example in his work of this style and manner.” The painter stayed in this charming retreat for two months, then was off to Ornans.

      His father had had a studio built for him, “of respectable dimensions, but the window was too small, and in the wrong position”. At once, “I had one three times as large put in; now it is as bright in there as in the street.” On the 26th of November, he explained the chance encounter that had led him to paint The Stone Breakers; “I had taken our carriage; I was going to the castle of Saint-Denis, near Maizières. I stopped to watch two men

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