Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a French painter from Ornans in the Franche-Comté and the leader of Realism. He wanted to paint what he saw, without idealisation: peasants, stone-breakers, a burial in his native village, landscapes, seascapes and nudes. A Burial at Ornans and The Painter's Studio (1855) are major works. After his role in the Paris Commune of 1871 he was convicted; he fled to Switzerland, where he died.