Porkopolis

Gustave Courbet

• 

• The Little Swine-Maiden

• (ca. 1849), oil on canvas
• 59.5 x 51.6 in. (151 x 131 cm.)
• E.G. Buhrle Foundation Collection, Zurich
• 750 x 870 (77 KB)

• 

• The Peasants of Flagey Returning from the Fair, Ornans

• (ca. 1850 - 55), oil on canvas
• 101.2 x 80.7 in. (257 x 205 cm.)
• Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon
• 1005 x 749 (89 KB)

• Artist Index
• Thumbnails
• Exhibitions
• Other Museums
• Private Collection
• Artist Page

About the Artist

Gustave Courbet, French, (1819 – 1877). Courbet started and dominated the mid-19th-century French movement toward realism. Realism is an approach to art in which subjects are depicted in as straightforward a manner as possible, without idealizing them and without following rules of formal artistic theory.

Prior to the beginning of this movement, art critics and the public were accustomed to a more romantic style of painting that made life look better than it was. Courbet, against much opposition, truthfully portrayed ordinary places, people and nature.