A Political and a Pictorial Tradition Used in Gustave Courbet's Real Allegory

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A Political and a Pictorial Tradition Used in Gustave Courbet's Real Allegory Author(s): Margaret Armbrust Seibert Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Jun., 1983), pp. 311-316Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3050325Accessed: 22-05-2015 15:42 UTC

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A Political and a Pictorial Tradition Used in Gustave Courbet's Real Allegory

Margaret Armbrust Seibert

In his letter to Champfleury of January, 1855, Gustave Courbet wrote: "The critics who attempt to judge this work will have their hands full, they will have to make what they can of it."' Courbet was describing his most recent work, a canvas that was later given the paradoxical title: The Atelier of the Painter: A Real Allegory Summarizing a Period of Seven Years in My Life as an Artist.

After the voting of the Universal Exposition jury during March and April of 1855, Courbet wrote to his friend and patron Alfred Bruyas: "Terrible things have happened to me. They have just refused my Burial and my last picture the Atelier as well as the portrait of Champfleury. They declared it was necessary at any cost to arrest the progress of my movement which has had a disastrous effect on French art."2 In this same letter Courbet ex- plained his plan to set up an independent retrospective exhibit on a site opposite the official art exposition. Courbet's Pavilion of Realism opened at noon, June 28, 1855. A catalogue with a state- ment by the artist (the "Realist Manifesto") was available for ten centimes. Listed as "Number 1" was The Atelier of the Painter.

Scholars have always been puzzled by the juxtaposition of the words "real" and "allegory" in the subtitle of Courbet's most important work. Champfleury was the first to voice confusion in his letter to Mme. Sand of September, 1855, which he published. He wrote: "Here are two words that clash with each other and bother me. ... An 'allegory' cannot be 'real' any more than a reality' can be 'allegorical ...'"3 But Realism is not reality, and, as an artistic style, can be allegorical like any other.

This study is a re-examination of the central section of The Atelier of the Painter, identifying two allegorical traditions ap- parent there. This section portrays a nude model, a little boy, a white cat and Courbet himself, in the act of painting a landscape (Fig. 1).

The traditional image that comes closest to the presentation and elements seen in the central section of Courbet's painting, so far as I have been able to find, is Johann Saenredam's engraving after a drawing by Goltzius, Painter Painting a Young Woman (Fig. 2).

The Saenredam and the Courbet agree in number, type, and placement of all the key foreground figures: painter, nude model, little boy, and cat. The engraving has been identified by George Koltzsch as an Allegory of Sight, in which Love holds the mirror for Venus, the model, combined with an artist's self- portrait and other emblems of vision.4

Yet in spite of obvious similarities, differences between Cour- bet's painting and the print raise questions regarding Courbet's recasting of this traditional emblem of Vision in a "realist" mode. Courbet's model does not pose, but stands behind the painter, who executes a landscape. Paradoxically, this increases an awareness of the image's emblematic or allegorical role, while giving a genre quality to the scene. The child has no wings, wears peasant clothes, and holds no mirror; and Courbet's cat is white rather than striped. Yet, the repetition of the same four figures in a comparable combination leads one to investigate further the emblem's relevance to Courbet's "real allegory." It is too similar to be coincidental.

On the other hand, it is not claimed here that Courbet saw the Saenredam. Both works represent the existence of a continuing tradition which necessarily included lost images. And commen- tators have in fact identified the figures in Courbet's painting as serving the same allegorical function they do in the emblem, although these writers have apparently overlooked its significance.

In 1856, Theophile Silvestre identified the nude model in The Atelier as Truth.s More recently, Georges Boudaille, Werner Hofmann, Jack Lindsay, and Benedict Nicolson have agreed with this attribution.6 Linda Nochlin and Nicolson have further in- dicated that the model also functions as an inspiring Muse.7 The nudity of the model who has cast artifice (her wearing apparel) aside is the major point on which this attribution of Truth is based. The tradition of the emblem of Vision ties this down more securely and relates it to the other images.

The model also represents Beauty. The precedents for this attribution beginning with the story of Apelles and Campaspe are dealt with by Matthias Winner,8 and various Venuses in the guise of model are presented by Koltzsch,9 confirming this equally viable interpretation. Courbet himself linked both Truth and Beauty with vision in his Open Letter to Students, of 1861:

The beautiful exists in nature and may be encountered in the

Parts of this paper were presented at the Seventh Annual Mid-American Art History Meeting, Modern Art Session, Chairman Mathew Herban III, March, 1980. 1 G. Courbet, Letter to Champfleury, January, 1855, repr. in Mack, 128- 130, and in R. Huyghe, G. Bazin, H. Adh6mar, Courbet, L'Atelier du Peintre, Alligorie Reelle 1855 (Monographie des Peintures du Musee du Louvre), Paris, 1944, 23. 2 Mack, 134. 3 Champfleury, Letter to Mme. Sand, September, 1855, repr. in Nochlin, 1966, 42.

4 G.W. Koltzsch, Maler und Modell im Atelier, exh. cat., Baden-Baden, 1969, text with pl. 17. Courbet could have seen this print in any one of several places prior to painting The Atelier. The Bibliotheque Nationale now owns four copies; two were in the Marolles Collection, acquired by Colbert for Louis XIV. (Letter from Jean-Pierre Seguin, Conservateur-en- Chef, Nov. 13, 1980.) Lindsay, 83 and 115, and Mack, 114 and 82, list

Courbet's trips to Frankfurt and Brussels. A copy of the Saenredam came in 1812 from the collection of Senator Johann Carl Br6nner to the Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft and was later integrated into the StAidelsches Kunstinstitut. (Letter from Dr. Lutz S. Malke, Staidelsches Kunstinstitut, Oct. 1980.) Another copy, Inventory No. SII 8630, exists at the Bibliotheque Albert ler, Brussels. (Letter from N. Tassoul, Sub- keeper, Nov. 1980.) 5 Nochlin, 1963, 220; G. Boudaille, Gustave Courbet - Painter in Protest, trans. M. Bullock, New Haven, Conn., 1969, 65; Nicolson, 31. 6 Boudaille, 65; Hofmann, 17; Lindsay, 131; Nicolson, 31.

7 L. Nochlin, "Gustave Courbet's Meeting: A Portrait of the Artist as a Wandering Jew," Art Bulletin, XLIX, 1968, 220; idem (as in n. 5), 218-19. s M. Winner, "Gemalte Kunsttheorie: zu Gustave Courbets 'Allegorie Reelle' und der Tradition," Jahrbuch der Berliner Museum, 1960-61, 157. 9 Koltzsch (as in n. 4).

NOTES 311

Oficio 21, 1662, libro I, folio 1772 Dowry of dofia Sebastiana Arias Maldonada, widow of Juan Correa de la Pefia, contador, in her marriage to Josephe Ortiz Castellar, notary public. The dowry is dated 21 November 1662. Un cuadro de una Veronica de mano de Zurbarin con su moldura dorada y estofada en ciento y cinquenta reales.


312 THE ART BULLETIN JUNE 1983 VOLUME LXV NUMBER 2

1 Gustave Courbet, The Atelier of the Painter, 1855. Paris, Louvre (photo: Clich6 des Musees Nationaux, Paris)

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2 Johann Saenredam after Goltzius, Painter Painting Young Woman, 1616 (photo: German National Museum, Nuremberg)

midst of everyday reality ... As soon as beauty is real and visi- ble it has its own artistic expression from these very qualities. Artifice has no right to amplify this expression. ... The beauty provided by nature is superior to all the conventions of the artist ... Beauty like Truth is a thing relative to the time in which one lives and the individual capable of understanding it. The expression of the beautiful bears a precise relation to the power of perception acquired by the artist. These are my basic ideas about art.'1

Thus, the model is Courbet's personification of Truth and Beauty, and his recasting of them into a modern image is ap- propriate to the realist character of his style.

The child who stands at Courbet's left in The Atelier has been considered the "innocent eye which lacks convention" by Hof- mann, Lindsay, and Nicolson." Mack and Nochlin see him as the "homage of future generations.""2 Meyer Shapiro viewed the little boy as a metaphor for Courbet's own sincerity, truth, and naivet,,13 while Lindsay points out that the child and model are the only figures who note the work in progress on the easel.14

Thus, the child and model create an effective bracket around the artist at his easel. If one is taken to be allegorical, so plausibly may the other. While the child appears as innocent, unlettered, and naive, he also plays an allegorical role, like the model. The idea of Love as a poor boy, unusual in allegorical painting, yet has a base in a text so fundamental to Western thinking that its availability at any time can hardly be gainsaid. Plato in the Symposium described him thus:

In the first place he [Love] is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid ... and like his mother [Poverty] he is always in dis-

10 G. Courbet, "Open Letter to Students," Courier du dimanche, Dec. 25, 1861, repr. in Nochlin, 35, and in C. L6ger, Courbet, Paris, 1929. Cour- bet's studies in philosophy at the College Royale, Besanqon, are men- tioned in Mack, 18, and Lindsay, 11. 11 Hofmann, 17; Lindsay, 133; Nicolson, 31. 12 Mack, 131; Nochlin, 1963, 218-19.

13 M. Shapiro, "Courbet and Popular Imagery," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, iv, 1940-41, 183. 14 Lindsay, 133; Nicolson, 31. E. and J. de Goncourt, French XVlllth Century Painters, New York, 1948, 90-91, mention Boucher's intention to paint an atelier self-portrait with Venus and Cupid.


NOTES 313

tress. Like his father [Plenty] too ... keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources ... he is in a mean [balance] between ignorance and knowledge ... and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant.'5

Love is an attribute of Venus, because he loves Beauty, and follows her because he was born on her birthday.16 However, the Symposium specifically indicates that love "has no shoes,"17 and Courbet's Love wears sabots.

A visual prototype for Love with sabots is found in Pierre- Paul Prud'hon's Love and Innocence (Fig. 3), a drawing issued as an engraving in three different states and also as a lithograph.s1 The representative of Innocence is a girl, and that of Love is barefooted, but his sabots also appear on the ground beside him.

Lindsay indicates that especially between 1851 and 1855, sabots were commonly used as a socially charged emblem for the "realist savages,"'9 of whom Courbet was certainly thought to be one of the most prominent artistic, if not political represen- tatives.20 During this period, cartoons and caricatures frequently appeared showing Courbet with his models, a Venus, and figures from his works wearing sabots. One by Cham (1851) shows a jury awarding sabots to Courbet as a prize for the Stonebreakers.21 Thus, in this instance, sabots could be taken as Courbet's personal attribute.

As a reference to the satirical cartoons, the image of innocence and naivete began to emerge as a peasant. It remained, however, for Courbet to cast Love as an emblem relevant to himself, his art, and Beauty.

Courbet is the hero of The Atelier, as its full title and the situa- tion indicate. In his introduction to Maler und Modell im Atelier, George W. Koltzsch states that in every atelier self-portrait, the status, skill, and imagination of the artist are the real subjects of the work.22 Winner believes that any canvas on the easel in this genre regardless of subject allows artist and work to stand for Painting, Art, and Creation, the work being proof of the artist's genius.23 As Hofmann indicates, the central section of the work does glorify Courbet's artistic powers,24 and Bowness affirms this, stating that Courbet is unequivocally the hero of the work.25 This interpretation is consistent with the allegorial import of the

Saenredam print. However, the emblem has a picture of Beauty (Venus) on the

canvas, not the landscape Courbet's easel presents. Yet commen- tators say that the relevance of the landscape is the same as Beauty's relevance to the emblem. According to Nochlin, landscape reflects the beauty of nature,26 while Hofmann states that it represents reality.27 Mack insists that it represents realism as the only true art, 28whereas, as already noted, Winner holds that any canvas in such a work proves genius.29

Shapiro notes that it is traditional in atelier self-portraits for an artist to paint a landscape,30 and although he does not cite examples, many exist in Netherlandish and French art (Figs. 4 and 5). Courbet's landscape appears remarkably like that seen in the Boucher (Fig. 5), leading one to suspect that Courbet was familiar with it, or Igonet's engraving of it, titled Painting.

Philosophically, Courbet holds that works based on nature are beautiful and express an ideal material archetype.31 Prior to Courbet, J.B. Deperthes' Theorie du paysage of 1818 significant- ly ranked landscape immediately after history painting for its ability "to move the soul and exalt the imagination of the spec- tator," because the true goal of art is the "faithful imitation of beautiful nature."32 By placing a landscape on his easel, Courbet gives it preeminence as a genre just as he gives preeminence to realism by placing sabots on Cupid and casting his Venus, along with other aspects of Saenredam's Allegory of Vision, into his realist style.

It is true that by 1848 landscape and genre seemed to have won the day. In The Absolute Bourgeois, T.J. Clark notes that in the Salon of that year, "thirty-six prizes went to painters of genre, and forty-three to landscapists; the history painters carried off only fifteen."33 Clark adds that during the next two years landscape was the second most important form of art the State

purchased.34 The transformation of the attitude toward landscape is summarized by J.C. Sloane's remark that "modernism appeared first in the humble field of landscape,"3- and James Rubin follows, remarking '"what may be said to emerge from the center of the picture [could be interpreted] as a defini- tion of Realism as pure landscape painting."36 In this light, landscape represents modernism and denotes an aspect of

15 Plato, Symposium, trans. B. Jowett, Indianapolis, 43. This was brought to my attention by B.A. Orr. 16 Ibid., 44. 17 Ibid., 45. 18 E. de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre peint, dessine, et grave de PP. Prud'hon, Paris, 1876, 129, No. 52: engraved by Villerey in 1817, lithograph issued by Leglume, drawing collection of the Duc d'Aumale; J. Guiffrey, L'oeuvre de P.P. Prud'hon, Paris, 1924, 280, No. 756; 281, No. 758, another drawing sold in March 1845. 19 Champfleury, Le messager de l'assemblee, Feb., 1851, 25-26, cited in Lindsay, 78: "Some declare the painter is the leader of Socialist bands; they write that he is the son of the democratic republic of 1848; they'd like to put black mourning on the Belvedere Apollo. If one hearkened to them, the members of the institute should sit in their armchairs as the senators once did in their curule chairs, and die proudly, stricken by the muddy sabots of the realist savages." 20 Lindsay, 76-78, and 140. 21 C. L6ger and T. Duret, preface, Courbet selon les caricatures et les images, Paris, 1920, show many of the illustrations of 1851-55 that emphasize the sabots. Among them are several by Cham, 12, 14, 18; some by Quillenbois, 28 and 30, as well as the Hadol Venus in Sabots, 37. 22 Koltzsch (as in n. 4), intro. 23 Winner (as in n. 8), 157. 24 Hofmann, 19. For a study of Courbet's Atelier in the light of his

oeuvre, see M. Fried, "Representing Representation: On the Central Group in Gustave Courbet's 'Studio,'" Art in America, Sept., 1981, 127- 133 and 168-178. 25 A. Bowness, "The Painter's Studio," repr. in Courbet in Perspective, ed. P. ten Doesschate Chu, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977, 130. 26 Nochlin, 1963, 219. 27 Hofmann, 17. 28 Mack, 131. 29 Winner (as in n. 8), 157. 30 Shapiro (as in n. 13), 183. 31 Courbet (as in n. 10), 35: "Nature is superior to all the conventions of the artist. ... Imagination in art consists in knowing how to find the most complete expression of an existing thing, but never in inventing or creating that thing itself." 32 J.B. Deperthes, Theorie du paysage: ou considerations gn&erales sur les beautes de la nature que l'art peut imiter, Paris, 1818, 1, 4-5, and 139. 33 T.J. Clark, The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France 1848-1851, New Haven, Conn., 1973, 69. 34 Ibid., 69. 3- J.C. Sloane, French Painting Between the Past and the Present, Prince- ton, 1951, 71 and 75. 36 J.H. Rubin, Realism and Social Vision in Courbet and Proudhon, Princeton, 1980, 6.



3 Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Love and Innocence. Chantilly, Mus&e Conde (photo: Giraudon)

4 P. Horemans, Visitors in a Painter's Studio, 1727 (courtesy of the Netherlands Institute for Art History)

5 Frangois Boucher, The Atelier, ca. 1750. Paris, Louvre (photo: Cliche des Mushes Nationaux, Paris)

Republican patronage. Landscape is a major embodiment of Realist expression, a manifestation of Truth and Beauty in presentation and aesthetic.

Fernand Desnoyers confirmed that attitude in 1855 when he championed Realism as sincere and clear-sighted, comparing the truth of the realist works to that of mirrors.37 A. Boersch has demonstrated that natural landscape has been "a paradigm of the aesthetic experience" since the seventeenth century.38 Not only can the Atelier be viewed as a mirror held up to nature, but the landscape presents another within: Nature herself on the easel as gauge and standard of Absolute Truth and reality within Realism. Venus looks into a mirror in the Allegory of Vision and her image is restated on the artist's canvas, whereas beauty for Courbet takes the modern form of landscape; the truth of nature is the ideal of loved beauty, the principle that earlier centuries had labeled Venus.

The remaining element to be explored in this discussion of the Courbet and Saenredam is the cat. The white cat in the foreground of The Atelier is fascinating, although it has not been discussed by any of the aforementioned scholars. It is one of the most prominent motifs in the central section of the work. As the image placed closest to the viewer, its pose and color attract attention. A cat's place in the studio can certainly be understood in the context of the "real" as controller of the vermin that eat and destroy canvas, but what is its "allegorical" function?

Within the context of the Allegory of Vision, Courbet had the opportunity to use the cat as an emblem that could easily function realistically, while having cultural and political import and also harmonizing with the other central figures. Champfleury began research on his book Les chats in 1849, publishing it in 1869 with an etymology: Catar or Chatar in Old French and Provengal means "to see" or "to look."39 In Egypt the cat- goddess Bastet was called the Lady of Truth and associated with the all-seeing eye of Horus.40 The two eyes of the cat were held to be aspects of foresight and insight.41 Scholars such as Cesare Ripa also acknowledged the ancients' linking of the cat and sight, as did Champfleury.

The cat's extraordinary vision in darkness renders it an ideal

37 Sloane, 77. 38 A. Boersch, "Landscape, Exemplar of Beauty," British Journal of Aesthetics, winter, 1971, 93-94. 39 Champfleury, Les chats, trans. Mrs. C. Howey, London, 1885, 174. J. Troubat, Sainte-Beuve et Champfleury: Lettres de Champfleury h sa mere, a son frkre, et a divers, Paris, 1908, 266, to Sainte-Beuve, Laon, Oct. 7, 1869: "Ces Chats sont decidement accroches au fameux clou qui est enfonce pour vingt ans." The Rothschild edition was dedicated to Troubat, who indicates with a footnote that this is the work Champfleury refers to in this letter. 40 P. Dale-Green, Cult of the Cat, New York, 1963, 21-26. 41 Ibid., 144-45.


NOTES 315

jX Ai dewAs- 'warni tej/Z/st' o,

6 Hendrik Goltzius, Sight, 1578 (photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

7 Barent Fabritius, Sight. Aachen, Siiermondt Museum (photo: Museum)

8 Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Allegory of the Constitution, 1790's. Dijon, Mus&e des Beaux-Arts (photo: Musee)

emblem. Older editions of Ripa sometimes use a lynx.42 The word derives from the Greek Leukos which means "white, light and sight."43 But domestic cats replaced the lynx, as we see in Hendrik Goltzius' Sight of 1578 (Fig. 6)44 or in a Fabritius panel of Sight at Aachen (Fig. 7), which shows a cat looking into a mirror held by a peasant boy.

In 1848 Theophile Gautier published an article on Republican symbolism in L'artiste. This article specifically cites in its text the iconologies of Ripa, and Gravelot and Cochin. Similar information also appeared in Champfleury's Les chats: "The origin of the cat as a symbol of independence is of remote antiquity. In the temple of Liberty which Rome owed to Tiberius Gracchus the Goddess was arrayed in white ... at her feet was a cat, the emblem of Liberty. From the Middle Ages down to modern times we repeatedly find the cat used as a symbol of independence."45 Some of the examples cited in Champfleury employ the cat alone as a representative of independence,46 and special mention is made of its uses as an emblem of the French Republic by both Gautier and Champfleury. The cat became a part of the Republic's coat-of-arms and appeared at the feet of Liberty in Pierre-Paul Prud'hon's Allegory of the Constitution (Fig. 8), a detail of which appeared in Champfleury's Les chats.47 The white cat in Courbet's Atelier follows the dictates that Liberty be draped in white,48 reinforcing the fact that this is her cat,

42 C. Ripa, Iconologia: Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery 1758-1760, intro. and comments, E. Maser, Dover repr. of Hertel ed., New York, 1961, text with pl. 110.

4 The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, 1961, vi, s.v., "Leuco-," "look," "Lynx"; Ix, s.v. "sight." 44 Letter from Jean-Pierre Seguin (footnote 4): the Goltzius plates at the Bibliotheque Nationale are under restoration, so that the presence of this one in the collection cannot be verified at this time. 45 T. Gautier, "Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts: The Symbolism of the Republic," L'artiste, 5e serie, June 15, 1848, 160-61, repr. in E. Holt, The Triumph of Art for the Public, New York, 1979, 495-496; Champfleury (as in n. 39), 28-32. 46 Champfleury, 31-32. 47 Ibid., 32. 48 Gautier, 495-96.



Independence. 49 Numerous representations of Liberty and her cat were

available, as Gautier and Champfleury demonstrate. In addition, the cat will not tolerate constraint, a quality that Courbet demonstrates by holding an independent retrospective for himself which paralleled those given for Ingres and Delacroix at the Universal Exposition at the offical 1855 Salon.

In his letter to Mme. Sand, Champfleury confirms that through the Courbet exhibit where The Atelier was the principal piece, a new blow for Liberty was struck. Courbet is presented as: "A painter whose name has made an explosion since the February Revolution. ... It is an incredibly audacious act; it is the subversion of all institutions associated with the jury; it is a direct appeal to the public, it is liberty say some. ..."50

It is impossible to think that Courbet was unfamiliar with Republican symbols. He loved his grandfather, a veteran of 1793. The seven-year phase that The Atelier covers, according to its subtitle, began in 1848, the year of the February Revolution and birth of the Second Republic as well as Courbet's creation of his first Salon success, After Dinner at Ornans. Courbet's socialist and Republican sympathies were well established in 1848, when he helped to found the Republican newspaper, Le salut public.

Courbet's introduction to the 1855 Pavilion of Realism, his written manifesto, was accompanied by a visual manifesto as well, The Atelier of the Painter: A Real Allegory Summarizing a Period of Seven Years in My Life as an Artist. The painting parallels Courbet's introduction to the catalogue showing his clear understanding and use of tradition and visually states:

I have studied, outside of any system and without prejudice, the art of the ancients and the art of the moderns. I no more wanted to imitate the one than to copy the other. No! I simply wanted to draw forth from a complete acquaintance with tradition the reasoned and independent consciousness of my own individuality.

To know in order to create, that was my idea. To be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch, according to my own estimation; to be not only a painter, but a man as well; in short to create living art - this is my goal.51

The Columbus College of Art and Design Columbus, OH 43215

Bibliography Hofmann, W., Art in the Nineteenth Century, trans. B. Battershaw, Lon- don, 196.

Lindsay, J., Gustave Courbet: His Life and Art, New York, 1973. Mack, G., Gustave Courbet, Greenwich, Conn., 1952.

49 Ibid., 495: "and the cat, independence - because this animal is never perfectly tamed and supports constraint impatiently." 50 Repr. in Nochlin, 1966, 37-38. It is interesting that in 1850 Courbet had an exhibition in Dijon, where the Prud'hon Allegory of the Constitu- tion was hanging. The work was later reproduced in part (Liberty and her cat) in Champfleury's Les chats. Although the work may have been available, I do not insist that Courbet did see it in Dijon. 51 G. Courbet, Exhibition et vente de 40 tableaux et 4 dessins de l'oeuvre de M. Gustave Courbet, Avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1855, n.p., repr. in Nochlin, 1966, 33-34; facsimile with complete listings in Leger (as in n. 10), 60-62.

Nicolson, B., Courbet: The Studio of the Painter, New York, 1973.

Nochlin, L., 1963, "The Development and Nature of Realism in the Work of Gustave Courbet," Ph.D. diss., New York University.

, 1966, ed., Realism and Tradition in Art, 1848-1900, Englewood

Cliffs, NJ.

Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe in the Salon des Refuses: A Re-appraisal

Alan Krell

Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe is invariably singled out as a symbol of early modernism. Attention is drawn to the "succes de scandale" it gained at the Salon des Refuses of 18631 - even the Emperor Napoleon was supposed to have censured it in public2 - and one writer has compared its iconoclastic nature to Duchamp's gesture of placing a moustache on the Mona Lisa.3

Examples of criticism leveled at the Dejeuner in 1863 were quoted by Adolphe Tabarant in his two studies of Manet published in 1931 and 1947.4 George Hamilton presented similar material.5 Neither of these scholars found that the critical es- timates called into question the so-called "succes de scandale" at- tributed to the Dejeuner.6 To Tabarant's credit, he did question Proust's account of Napoleon's rebuttal of the painting. Quite correctly, he noted the absence of any reference in the press to the Emperor's visit to the Refuses, let alone to a denunciation of Manet's picture.7

Anne Hanson rightly observes that, even though Hamilton "interprets the criticism as extremely negative and depressing to the artist" (and this is in reference to Manet's career as a whole and not simply the Dejeuner), "Hamilton's excerpts show that Manet was defended, albeit grudgingly, and that his works were noted and commented upon."8 Hanson also makes the important

1 See, e.g., T. Duret, Histoire d'Edouard Manet et de son oeuvre, Paris, 1902, 26, J. Richardson, Edouard Manet: Paintings and Drawings, Lon- don/New York, 1958, 22, B. Farwell, "A Manet Masterpiece Recon- sidered," Apollo, LXXVIII, 1963, 45, I. Dunlop, The Shock of the New, London, 1972, 45. 2 This story originated with Manet's biographer, Antonin Proust. See Proust's recollections (Edouard Manet: Souvenirs) first published serially in La revue blanche in February, March, and April, 1897; see LXXXIX, Feb. 15, 1897, 172. Further credence is given to this story by Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein in Edouard Manet: Catalogue raisonne, 2 vols., Paris/Lausanne, 1975, I, 12.

3 L. Nochlin, The Invention of the Avant-Garde: France, 1830-80, in Avant-Garde Art, ed. T. B. Hess and J. Ashbery, London, 1967/68, 21.

4 A. Tabarant, Manet: Histoire catalographique, Paris, 1931, 95-97, and idem, Manet et ses oeuvres, Paris, 1947, 68-70.

s G. H. Hamilton, Manet and His Critics (1st ed. 1954), New York, 1969, 41-51. 6 See A. Krell, "Wit, Irony and the Search for Acclaim: Manet and the Nude in the 1860's," Ph.D. diss., Bristol University, 1977, 50-72. 7 Tabarant, 1947 (as in n. 4), 72. Proust may have based part of this story on Edmond Bazire's book in which he mentions the scandal created by Napoleon's visit to the "centre de revolutionnaires"; see Bazire, Manet, Paris, 1884, 23. Bazire is less than accurate on the Refuses, identifying Le Bain and the Dejeuner as two different pictures. Manet exhibited his painting as Le Bain; see Catalogue des oeuvres refuses par le jury de 1863, Paris, 1863, No. 363.

8 A. C. Hanson, Manet and the Modern Tradition, New Haven and Lon- don, 1977, 46, n. 260.


Article Contentsp. 311p. 312p. 313p. 314p. 315p. 316

Issue Table of ContentsArt Bulletin, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Jun., 1983), pp. 183-360Front MatterThe Arts in Some Asian and African RegionsThe Flying Gallop: East and West [pp. 183-200]An Icon at Mt. Sinai and Christian Painting in Muslim Egypt during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries [pp. 201-218]House of Stones: Memorial Art of Fifteenth-Century Sierra Leone [pp. 219-237]

Three Italian Painters 1460-1490Antonello da Messina's Saint Jerome in His Study: An Iconographic Analysis [pp. 238-253]Verrocchio and Venice, 1469 [pp. 253-273]Reconsidering Some Aspects of Ghirlandaio's Drawings [pp. 274-290]

Hans Baldung Grien's Ottawa Eve and Its Context [pp. 290-304]NotesThe Last Sevillian Period of Francisco de Zurbarn [pp. 305-311]A Political and a Pictorial Tradition Used in Gustave Courbet's Real Allegory [pp. 311-316]Manet's Djeuner sur l'herbe in the Salon des Refuss: A Re-appraisal [pp. 316-320]Czanne's Sources for Les Grandes Baigneuses [pp. 320-323]

DiscussionThe Archaeology of Wall Mosaics: A Note on the Mosaics in Sta. Maria Maggiore in Rome [pp. 323-324]The Restorations of the Sta. Maria Maggiore Mosaics [pp. 325-328]

Review ArticleReview: Demand for Art in Renaissance Florence: Three Recent Books [pp. 329-335]

Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 336-339]Review: untitled [pp. 339-340]Review: untitled [pp. 340-342]Review: untitled [pp. 342-346]Review: untitled [pp. 346-347]Review: untitled [pp. 347-349]

List of Books Received (October, 1982, to March, 1983) [pp. 350-353]Dissertation Topics, 1982 [pp. 354-360]Correction: Dissertation Topics, 1981 [p. 360]Back Matter

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A Political and a Pictorial Tradition Used in Gustave Courbet's Real Allegory

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