French - The Stonebreakers

• Artist

  Gustave Courbet
• Form & Style

  Oil on canvas, realist artwork
• Date

  1849
• Inspirations

  • Own personal political background as a socialist
  • The social anarchy prevalent during the multiple European revolutions within 1848.
  • Karl Marx’s (the ‘father of communism’) “Communist Manifesto”.
• Purpose

  Attempts to confront the Bourgeoise with the truth surrounding the circle of poverty & the inhuman conditions which working class individuals had to endure within their working life – a subject matter seldomly depicted in art.
• Subject matter

  Point: Positioned in media res, C focuses on the working life of two participants – father & son, in immediate foreground.

  
  

  Reasoning: Partaking in manual labour as “stonebreakers”, smashing rocks to create new road which will later be filled with gravel.

  
  

  Effect (1): Due to repetitive nature of job, effectively paints a ‘before and after’ effect - foreshadowing fate of the son, in which, like his father, he too will continue this job until death.

  
  

  Effect (1 - expanded): Establishes sombre atmosphere due to their strenuous working life, provoking viewer to feel a sense of pity for the struggling participants.
• Give point about clothing 


  Point: Also heightened figure’s working-class status

  
  

  Reasoning: through ripped shirts, waistcoat, patched-up trousers and clogs.

  
  

  Effect: Intensifies his innovativeness as he rebels against academic conventions (typically seen in the Salon) since has chosen to not idealise the figures (with ornate, expensive clothing or flawless, muscled nudity) and instead expresses an unheroic & realistic subject matter of working life. 

  
• Give point about palette & horizon line

  Point (1): Includes muted & earthy palette, (for not only the participants, but also the dismal landscape as well) consisting of browns, greys and dark yellows which dominates the canvas.

  
  

  Point (2): Creates a high horizon line

  Reasoning: To minimalize the viewer’s glimpse of blue sky in top right-hand corner of distant background.

  
  

  Effect: Produces a sense of monotony, pessimism & darkness to reiterate the harshly realistic working life of these working-class individuals.  

  
• Give point about anonymous - rukenfigur

  Point: Representation of working life further solidified through that both father & son remain anonymous.

  
  

  Reasoning: Both appear to be placed in a rukenfigur position.

  
  

  Effect: Makes viewer consider if the two figures are beneath their interests, appearing isolated & engulfed in concentration of their hard labour with bent knees and slightly hunched backs.

  
• Give point about son + rock story + link hill

  Point (2): Can be argued that son, on left-hand side of the central axis (balancing a basket of rocks on his left knee) represents the Greek allegory Sisyphus, punished for eternity to repeatedly carry a rock up a steep hill in the underworld.

  
  

  Point (2): This can be furthered through inclusion of a steep hill, which takes up almost all of the midground and background.

  
  

  Effect: Reinforce that the hill = metaphor for difficultly, oppression and entrapment.

  
  

  Context: Since, due to industrial revolution, rural workers forced to change their working life - abandon crafting their own pieces, and instead took on more monotonous & low paying jobs. 

  
• Conclusion + CT

  Extent of C’s success as a painter of innovative French art can be reinforced through the fact:

  • This artwork was displayed in the Salon in 1850. However, there was no judging panel, which was a response to the democratic mood of the time. Thus, he creatively took advantage of this change and displayed his artwork.
  • But also, his subject matter is a stark contrast to academic styled paintings, since he produces art based on the non-idealised record of truth, abiding only by his beliefs that he had “never seen an angel. Show me an angel, and I’ll paint one”.  
• Additional conclusion

  Courbet French art was highly avant-garde at the time.

  
  

  Chose to not coincide with modernity nor was linked with an art movement that focused on the bourgeoisie.

  
  

  Rebels against modernity through innovative subject matter of working life, reviving importance of depicting:

  • Realism
  • Authenticity of being human before the modernism of social & technological factors,

  Since he admirably depicted working life before people were governed by lifeless machines or surrounded by the growing egotistical populace.