A Burial at Ornans by Gustave Courbet (1849-1850)

The subject of the painting is a funeral that Courbet actually participated in 3 years prior to excelling his experience on the canvas. His great uncle was buried in September, 1848. The reason why I choose to interpret this painting is because it is a very controversial time in Europe. Revolutions where sweeping Europe; each country in Europe wanted to get rid of the longstanding absolutist regime. These revolutions' spur moments and place was Paris, France, a revolution in its proletarian character that almost was considered a socialist uprising which witnessed to the downfall of freedom movements.

This brings me to our artist that was upheld as an artist of realism. A Burial at Ornans is with great implication the artistic movement that portrayed townsmen just like Francisco de Goya's work called Third of May, 1808.

I relate these two paintings, because they were both received by the public, and state with great controversy, but more importantly the similar idea or purpose, but different contextualization of the given scene. There is a gap of about 40 year, and one country between the two paintings, but nevertheless the distinction is not completely thrown out of proposition. In my opinion, the color use is very dim, and that is something that blends well with the occasion being.

It is hard to categorize this painting due to the “art-era” it was made in. What I mean by that is all the revolutions sweeping Europe, a church controlled Europe, and certainly a revolution in art from Romanticism to Realism, or just in general to anything that can bring out the truth, meaning genre-free art.

Hopefully, I am not off on a tangent, but I feel like Courbet’s painting was a very essential stepping stone to the many revolutionary acts we see today not even involved with art, but most likely inspired by it. Just to take an example, we have “Tank Man”. This rebel stopped tanks in Beijing in 1989 due to his passion, liberty, and most importantly to show the world a message.

What makes people rebel and do unusual things according to social norms? Just to mention a few: oppression, unexplained law, and discrimination . Back to Courbet’s painting; we see the painting expressing sadness, grief, simplicity, reality, and a genuine feel of the occasion.