Courbet »

Linda Nochlin is the Lila Acheson Wallace Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

The product of a lifetime's scholarship: Linda Nochlin's complete writings on Courbet's work.

Linda Nochlin is one of the most influential art historians of our time. For more than four decades, she has been at the forefront of the feminist critique of art history, playing a pivotal role in shaping the course of the discipline. Ever since completing a doctorate on Gustave Courbet in the early 1960s, she has devoted herself to a lifelong study of the artist, arguably the most radical of all nineteenth-century painters and one of the fathers of modern art.

Now, in this landmark volume, every aspect of Courbet's oeuvre comes under Nochlin's scrutiny—from his vast realist depictions of provincial French life, allegorical works, and paint-encrusted landscapes to his dark, brooding portraits, sensual nudes, and earthy still lifes. In a specially written introduction, she considers Courbet's lasting impact not only on later painting but also on the practice of art history itself.

With essays spanning forty years, Courbet is much more than a monograph on a single artist. It is also the story of the intellectual development of one of our leading writers on the visual arts. 130 illustrations, 10 in color.

Introduction: Courbet, the Real Allegory     6
Innovation and Tradition in Courbet's: A Burial at Ornans     19
Gustave Courbet's Meeting: A Portrait of the Artist as a Wandering Jew     29
Gustave Courbet's Toilette de la Mariee     55
Color Plates 1-9     65
Courbet, the Commune, and the Visual Arts     84
The Cribleuses de ble: Courbet, Millet, Breton, Kollwitz, and the Image of the Working Woman     95
In Detail: Courbet's A Burial at Ornans     109
The De-Politicization of Gustave Courbet: Transformation and Rehabilitation under the Third Republic     116
Courbet, Oller and a Sense of Place: The Regional, the Provincial, and the Picturesque in Nineteenth-Century Art     128
Color Plates 10-14     137
Courbet's L'Origine du monde: The Origin without an Original     145
Courbet's Real Allegory: Rereading The Painter's Studio     153
Courbet and his Territory: How Landscape Means     186
Notes     207
Picture Credits     222
Index     222