Gustave Courbet

Ornans, Flagey, the countryside!

Ornans, a rural town in Franche-Comté, is the birthplace of the painter Gustave Courbet. He lived there from 1819 until he was 18. His parents, well-to-do farmers (half-peasant, half-bourgeois), lived in a house on the banks of the Loue River (now the Courbet Museum). Another important place in the painter’s life, particularly during his childhood, was the family farm in Flagey, which belonged to his paternal grandfather.

It was in the heart of this magnificent Loue Valley that the master drew much of his inspiration. Close to the people of the land, he possessed their common sense; he knew their customs and their mindset. His life would be punctuated by numerous returns to his homeland, which allowed him to recharge his batteries.

“To paint a country, you must know it. I know my country; I paint it. These woods are our home; this river is the Loue, that one is the Lison; these rocks are those of Ornans and the Puits Noir. Go and see for yourselves, then, and you will recognize all my paintings.”
Gustave Courbet.

Gustave, the painter… Inventor of Realism!

The young man’s artistic calling became apparent at an early age. After a brief stint at the minor seminary in Ornans, he enrolled at the Royal College in Besançon, where he took drawing classes, among other subjects. Becoming less and less diligent in his classical studies, he preferred to take classes directly at the School of Fine Arts. In 1939, he left for Paris to study law, but he soon abandoned those studies in favor of an artistic career. Although his family’s social rise would have better suited a career in the liberal professions, his father did not seem to stand in the way of Courbet’s artistic aspirations.