After reading Roberta Smith, Karen Rosenberg, and Ken Johnson's list of favourite paintings in New York City in this past Sunday's New York Times, I thought I would attempt to discuss my five favourite works that I have seen, anywhere in the world, throughout my brief life time. As I sat down to contemplate which works of art have had the most impact, or inspired me the most, many images came rushing to the forefront.
1) Gustave Courbet, The Studio of the Painter: A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Artistic Life, 1854, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
I will preface my discussion of this painting with the fact that I wrote my senior thesis on Gustave Courbet, so I am slightly biased here. Nonetheless, this enormous painting (11 by 20 feet) is truly powerful -- not only in size, but in ambition as well. It is easy for lovers of Modern and Contemporary Art to forget of a time in which an artist was intimately, both personally and professionally, involved with the political and social movements of his time. Courbet had an acute sense of his role in the French Revolution -- he was a man from the rural city of Ornans that sought to ambush Paris (and Napoleon III) with his powerful, and one could even say crude brushstroke. Courbet was not bashful. A kind of Gonzo-journalist of his time, he believed that the only source of artistic inspiration could come from one's own experiences. This concept stood in stark contrast to the grandiose, historical allusions of the Neoclassicists that preceded him. In other words, Courbet truly embodied the avant-garde spirit.
As one meanders through the beautiful ground floor of the Musee d'Orsay, Courbet's large canvas is quietly tucked back to the far left. It is as if the curator wants the viewer to be startled and overpowered by Courbet's painting. True to his hubristic character, Courbet asserts himself as the most prominent figure in the middle of the canvas and surrounds himself with a young boy and a nude women (the classic oedipal complex). To the right he depicts his bohemian friends and to the left he shows "the people, misery, poverty, wealth, the exploited and exploiters, the people who live off death." This division of the canvas reveals what truly blew me away when I first saw this painting. Courbet places himself in the middle of these two groups in order to show, in his view, the curios role of the artist in the mid-19th century.
As if freed from the desires of the 16th and 17th century aristocrats, the 19th century artist was no longer bound by commission, but was free to express himself artistically as he pleased. Painting ceased to be a duty, but rather a visual articulation of the artist's passions. Courbet firmly believed that the role off the artist was to explore his social and cultural position in the world in which he lived and to distance his work from those that created art for the sake of a buck. Courbet places himself squarely between these dichotomous groups to visualize his artistic creed -- denounce any claims of the creation of art for art's sake. Throughout Courbet's life he used his art as a powerful political, and social tool in order to express the desires and passions of the peasant communities throughout rural France. Courbet was not concerned how much money this painting would garner. Rather, he meant to give a voice to those who had none in Paris in the mid 19th century -- the peasants.
As a side note to this painting. Any Williamsburg (Brooklyn) goer or any party goer for that matter loves a good 'pop-up' party.' It is that combination of spontaneity and thrill of what might happen that defines the beauty of a 'pop-up' party. In Courbet's Studio of the Painter we have, perhaps, one of the first recorded 'pop-up' parties. After the Salon denied the admission of Studio of the Painter (most likely due to its strong political undertones and depiction of Courbet's radical friends who opposed the status quo -- Proudhon and Baudelaire -- among others) Courbet decided to erect a "Pavilion of Realism" in the form of the 19th century version of a Brooklyn warehouse party -- a circus tent. Not only that, Courbet set up his personal exhibition directly across the street from the Salon. Courbet did not lack bravado.
If there is one characteristic that I believe attracts the modern viewer so strongly to Courbet, it is Courbet's steadfast belief in his ability to make a social difference in the time in which he lived.
Painting #2 to come next...
