Gustave Courbet Quotes
Titles have never given a just idea of things; were it otherwise, the work would be superfluous.
Courbet, Gustave. "The Realist Manifesto." Exhibition and Sale of 40 Pictures and 4 Drawings by the Work of M. Gustave Courbet, 1855. Reprinted in Art in Theory 1815-1900, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, Blackwell, 1998, p. 372.
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
