Page 15 - Courbet

COURBET IN LOVE AND PRODUCTIVE
DISAPPOINTMENT1

Anewly discovered painting by Gustave Courbet, Mother and Child on a Hammock (Fig. 1) is so
delicate, fresh and charming that it seems out of character for the boisterous and militant
pioneer of the artistic avant-garde. On a hammock covered by an oriental carpet sits a ravishing
young woman with her baby child, accompanied by a little girl looking on. It is a relatively
small painting for Courbet (32 x 40.5 cm.), but it is unmistakable as his, signed with initials he
sometimes used for small, early works and on some drawings. Additionally, one recognises in the mother the
profile of a woman who appears in other early works; either it is a portrait or simply Courbet’s favourite female
facial type.The painting also immediately reminds knowledgeable viewers of the well-known but considerably
larger The Hammock (70.5 x 97 cm.) in the Oskar Reinhardt Collection at Winterthur, which is dated 1844
(Fig. 2). One can easily place the smaller painting at about the same time or slightly earlier. Its skilful execution
suggests Courbet’s early ‘Romantic’ pictures, such as Self-Portrait with Black Dog (Fig. 3) of 1842 or The Draught
Players of 1844 (Fig. 4)2. Although Mother and Child’s subject matter is domestic, the painting’s elegance and
sentiment also fit with the few‘troubadour’ pictures Courbet made around the same time, for example the tiny
(26 x 22 cm.) Crossing the Ford (Fig. 5) or The Guitar Player, signed 1844 (Fig. 6).

Mother and Child on a Hammock therefore fits into the context of Courbet’s early work, but it also raises broader
questions that can lead one to reconsider aspects of Courbet’s subsequent development.The three sections of
this essay correspond more or less to the following three questions.Why is there a mother and child scene at
this early point in Courbet’s career when it is otherwise completely absent from his work and why does this
theme so quickly disappear? What might be the relationship of this unique portrayal of happy motherhood
to other images of women in Courbet’s painting? Why is such a domestic scene set in an isolated landscape
and what is the relationship of that setting to the landscape painting that became the mainstay of Courbet’s
production as his work progressed?

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