Courbet’s “the Stone Breakers” Essay Example

power, and many of his works of the period created shock not only in the elite of society but among fellow artists. The Stone Breakers was painted when Courbet was only 28 years old. He made it when he went to visit his parents in rural France, after settling in Paris. Alexander suggests that the painting is stylistically made up of numerous influences.

One of the key influences was ancient Assyrian relief art, which was newly being discovered by archeologists. This art form from an ancient culture made Courbet realize that “the greater materiality of things as they were enriched by details, whether conventionally decorative or naturalistic” was a way in which to achieve the goals he set for himself in his work. (Alexander: 452) As Alexander writes, Courbet’s style incorporated both Renaissance art traditions and conventions as well as popular culture of Republican post-Revolutionary France. Alexander, 1965) As Crapo writes, Courbet’s politics were influenced by his grandfather who had been very involved in the French Revolution of the end of the 18th century.

Frieze paintings also tell stories but do so in a highly stylized way. In terms of composition they set figures in relation to one another “on an angle or parallel with the picture plane, and antithetic groups roughly balanced around a central point. ”  The effect that occurs from this is a way to show how scenes or figures in settings can act both in a realistic and a symbolic way at the same time. In many of his works of this period, which also include The Wrestlers(figure3) The Bathers(figure4) and Courbet places figures in what appear to be a cross between engagement

in a movement or activity, and a stillness and separateness from each other. They seem to be realistic in one sense, and fantastic or mythological in another. Assyrian frieze sculpture was influential on many painters, as was Courbet’s work to prove very influential on painters of his generation and on early 20th century painters as well.

Alexander writes that Courbet studied Renaissance and Baroque paintings from Northern Europe as well as from Italy, and that he liked to mix classical visual ideas with “the straightforward symbolism of children’s drawings and popular prints, and the mechanical realism of the still novel photography. ” At the time he painted Stone Breakers he made another work called The Wrestlers which shows two very muscular, almost naked men, wrestling in a field.Their bulky shapes make them look almost like mythological heroes from Ancient Greece. The excavation of Assyrian sculpture at the time had a major influence on the look of the naked figures and the position of figures in Courbet’s work.

Assyrian frieze sculpture was notable for “exaggeration of subcutaneous elements, blood vessels, muscles, and bones…” Yet during his career he often faced criticism for being too rigid in his style. His work was also accused of being primitive and vulgar. This criticism came not only from art patrons and spectators, but also from other artists, such as Delacroix, also considered a French realist. (Schapiro: 166) Schapiro writes that while Courbet would be influential on later painters, his audience may have not only or primarily been other artists but the rural people that he chose to paint. For this reason his style is different than the high Parisian academic style. As

well, his subject matter of peasants and rural workers, such as in “The Stone Breakers” fits with his political socialist ideas.

His goal was to represent “the landscape, the individuals and the life of his native village of Orans on a monumental scale” to show to the people of Paris his belief of “the social importance of this world. ” (Schapiro:170) As Schapiro writes the early paintings, such as “The Stone Breakers”shows that he could paint in a complex realistic style, whereas in later works he would break from these traditions, drawing from more popular culture sources, which is also what Alexander suggests in his essay.