THE FATE OF A POLITICAL PAINTER

GUSTAVE COURBET'S ART DRAMATIZED SOCIAL ISSUES.

HE BECAME "DELEGATE TO THE ARTS" — LA COMMUNE'S 

MINISTER OF CULTURE 

His most famous work shows un-idealized peasants dominated by sinister priests. Painted after June, it presented intransigent Catholics in a hostile way:

A Burial at Ornans / zoom 

Too famous to be deported, he was condemned to six months in prison. He left these somber drawings:

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He was associated with the destruction of the Vendôme column, though he disapproved of the decision to demolish it,

taken before his election:

He found it artistically nil — the figures all of the same size were "gingerbread men" — but suggested that it should be taken apart and its base, which illustrated the Republic, placed in the courtyard of the Invalides.*

*For these facts and others, please click here (scrolling down) and here (both articles in French).

• This photo is his sole link with the demolition and it isn't him: He did not wear the military cap and the number on it is not that of his district's battalion. 

-- My Paris Commune

Zoom

Yet he was condemned to finance its replacement and we see the copy that he partially funded. He died before the payment was complete, a ruined paria. 

(In 1877) 

BFMTV

This fish is a self-portrait,
painted a few years before his death.

The Trout,1873, zoom

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Next,
Soldiers whom officers mistrust