Geology in the work of the painter Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55407/rsge.96718Keywords:
19th Century Painting, Geotourism, History of Art, Landscape, Geological HeritageAbstract
French painter Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was the main promoter of Realism in European Art. In his landscapes, away from the picturesqueness and sublimity of Romanticism and focused on the materiality of rocks, he depicted cavities, fountains, cliffs and geoforms in the Jura region (France and Switzerland), the Normandy coast or Belgium. Diverse factors played a decisive role in his interest in Geology; his excursions around his native Franche-Comté, the contact with scientific circles in the region, such as the Société d'émulation de Doubs, or his friendship with the French geologist Jules Marcou for which he carried out the geological study La Roche Pourrie (1864). During the central decades of the 19th century, the time in which he developed his artistic career, the Transformism controversy between Georges Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and the first publication of the Origin of Species in French (1862) took place. In addition, it has to be also considered the full development of other “historic” sciences such as Archaeology, Linguistics or History itself, that may be, in that sense, related to Geology. This cultural and scientific environment could have left its mark on the author's work, such as the trend towards the anthropomorphization of rocks or the identification of cavities, sources and resurgences with the female body. His way of working on the canvas can also be described as “geological” given the way of arranging the paste, in an almost sculptural way, retouching it with a palette knife, highlighting the materiality of the painting and pigments. Courbet´s geological paintings and its acceptance in the art market reflect both his personal perception of Nature and the commitment to his native region, as well as the emergence of a social awareness and an aesthetic appreciation about the earliest “sites of geological interest” in France. Courbet´s works offer a contemporary and valious testimony of the beginnings of Geotourism in Normandy, the Jura or the Ardennes and will influence other artists such as Cézanne or Monet in their series on Normandy or Mount Sainte-Victoire, an also the Spanish realistic landscaping, especially the so-called “Escuela de Guadarrama” when addressing geological aspects of Nature. Courbet´s legacy forms an indissoluble part of the Jura´s non-material geological heritage as well as a valuable resource from sustainable geotourism in the region.
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