3/19/12 Musée d'Orsay: Gustave Courbet The Artist's Studio

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L'Atelier du peintre. Allégorie réelle

déterminant une phase de sept années de ma

vie artistique et morale [The Artist's Studio, a

real allegory summing up seven years of my

artistic and moral life]

The enormous Studio is without doubt Courbet's mostmysterious composition. However, he provides severalclues to its interpretation: "It's the whole worldcoming to me to be painted", he declared, "on theright, all the shareholders, by that I mean friends,fellow workers, art lovers. On the left is the otherworld of everyday life, the masses, wretchedness,poverty, wealth, the exploited and the exploiters,people who make a living from death".In the first group, those on the right, we can recognisethe bearded profile of the art collector Alfred Bruyas,and behind him, facing us, the philosopher Proudhon.The critic Champfleury is seated on a stool, whileBaudelaire is absorbed in a book. The couple in theforeground personify art lovers, and near the window,two lovers represent free love.On the side of "everyday life", we find a priest, amerchant, a hunter who somewhat resemblesNapoleon III, and even an unemployed worker and a

Gustave Courbet (1819­1877) The Artist's Studio, a realallegory summing up sevenyears of my artistic andmoral lifeBetween 1854 and 1855Oil on CanvasH. 361; W. 598 cm© RMN (Musée d'Orsay) /Hervé Lewandowski

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Gustave Courbet The Artist's Studio

3/19/12 Musée d'Orsay: Gustave Courbet The Artist's Studio

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beggar girl symbolising poverty. We can also see theguitar, the dagger and the hat, which, together withthe male model, condemn traditional academic art.In this vast allegory, truly a manifesto painting, eachfigure has a different meaning. And in the middle ofall this stands Courbet himself, flanked by benevolentfigures: a female muse, naked like the Truth, a childand a cat. In the centre, the painter presents himselfas a mediator. Courbet thus affirms the artist's role insociety in an enormous scene on the scale of a historypainting. When faced with the rejection of hispainting, intended for the 1855 Universal Exhibition,Courbet built a "Pavilion of Realism" at his ownexpense. Here, outside the official event, he organisedhis own exhibition, which also includedA Burial atOrnans, so that his work could be available to thewhole of society.

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