Courbet and the Sea: Eyes on Nature in the 19th Century

From steep cliffs and rolling grasslands to headwater areas dotted with caves and tree-shaded rivers, Courbet painted many scenes of the distinctive terrain around Ornans—the village where he was born and raised in the mountainous region of Franche-Comté near the Swiss border. This section focuses on the landscapes Courbet painted during his frequent visits to his hometown after moving to Paris at the age of 20. The works are exhibited side-by-side with those of other well-known French landscape painters of the 19th century to demonstrate the comparative innovativeness of Courbet’s paintings.

Wild animals were a familiar sight for Courbet, who was raised deep within nature from a young age and enjoyed the autumn ritual of hunting. In this section, visitors can see how Courbet portrayed animals being hunted and dominated by humans as well as scenes of carefree animals inhabiting the natural environment. Visitors are invited to explore the contrast between Courbet's works and the paintings by contemporaries of the Barbizon school, who painted domesticated livestock in cultivated environments.

Western views on nature shifted significantly between the 18th and 19th centuries. Artists moved away from the long-held practice of painting the ocean as a representation of national prosperity, instead preferring to paint images in which the sea itself became an object of appreciation. This section introduces a number of dramatic seascapes painted during this time, when perspectives on the natural world were changing and the sea inspired a sense of awe and wonder.

During the 19th century, the network of railroads linking Paris to the major coastal cities was undergoing a rapid expansion, triggering a similarly rapid shift in how people viewed the sea—from an object of awe and wonder to a familiar presence in people’s lives. The Parisian middle class could travel by train to the seaside on holidays, where they enjoyed leisurely pursuits by the coast. In the works exhibited in this section, coastal landscapes have taken on a more familiar presence through the eyes of Courbet and his contemporaries Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet, and Gustave Caillebotte.

Given his upbringing in the mountains, it was not until Courbet was 22 years old that he first laid eyes on the sea. He described his first impression of the sea as “odd.” More than twenty years later, Courbet found himself spending time along the coast of Normandy every year from 1865 to 1869, ultimately leaving behind over one hundred paintings of the sea. Of the seascape paintings that Courbet devoted his attention to starting in 1865, eleven have been selected to be showcased in this final section of the exhibition.