Study Of Courbet’s Landscape Paintings

Gustave Courbet(1819--1877)was an important representative of French 19 th century realist painting.For a long time,art historical research has focused mainly on Courbet’s realist works such as "The Funeral of Ornan" and "The Drawing Room," and relatively little attention has been paid to his landscape paintings.less attention has been paid to his landscape paintings.But in fact,landscape painting occupied a large proportion of Courbet’s artistic career,and through Courbet’s landscapes one can also see the new face of landscape painting in the 19 th century.According to the ranking of art subjects by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture established in 1648: history,portraiture,genre,landscape,animal painting,and still life in descending order,landscape was a "secondary genre.However,in the 19 th century,with the development of the Enlightenment and people’s admiration for naturalism,the social acceptance of landscape painting began to change,and by the 19 th century it began to become the main category of painting,with landscape moving from the background to the foreground.It was against the backdrop of this shift in the market acceptance of landscape painting that Courbet produced a large number of paintings of this type,and landscape painting became the key to helping him escape the political quagmire.Courbet paid the price for his role in the affair,and the painter was dogged by political scandal throughout the 1970 s.It was not until after Courbet’s death that critics who supported Courbet intervened from landscape painting,rescuing the painter from the political crisis through a series of critical strategies that proved that he had no intention of participating in political events and was a simple naturalist painter,thus reinventing Courbet’s identity as an artist and helping him to enter the perspective of art history.It is with this in mind that this paper first systematically compares Courbet’s landscapes from different periods,and then examines how critics,when Courbet was caught in political turmoil,adopted corresponding critical strategies from landscapes to help him establish his identity and position in art history.Throughout the process,these different forces work together to form an invisible attitude that allows us to understand Courbet from a new perspective,the writing of art history and the role of art criticism in the establishment of the artist’s identity.