Page 42 - Courbet

bodice and semi-exposed flesh of The Hammock of 1844
can be interpreted broadly as a sign of the freedom
to loosen the strictures of society when alone in a
natural setting. The model’s feigned sleep creates the
illusion she is unaware that someone might be spying
on her. This painting may be compared to a well-
known picture by Courbet’s contemporary Camille
Corot, which shows a girl reading in the Forest of
Fontainebleau (Fig. 43). Presumably alone in her
environment, her blouse is undone at the top while
she is engrossed in what is likely a romantic novel.

Leaping from these mildly titillating works to the

Fig. 43. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Girl Reading in the explicitly erotic Courbet of the 1860s, we encounter
Fontainebleau Forest, c. 1834,The National Gallery of Art, the full-bodied Woman in the Waves which, despite
Washington, D.C. the young model’s demure expression, is primarily
a study of her well-formed breasts. The effect is

reinforced by their sensual juxtaposition to the seawater over which they are suspended (Fig. 44). The

picture may emulate some classical pose; it may evoke the mythological birth of Venus, who rises out of

the sea (Cabanel’s celebrated Birth of Venus dates from 1863). But Courbet’s makes her present to the eye’s

appetite through the subtle use of colour suggesting circulation below the girl’s tender, pinkish skin. He

dwells on the shape and substance of her firmer nipples. In addition, as Dominique de Font-Reaulx has
noticed, her finger tips display a fastidious manicure.56 Such details place the viewer squarely within a

contemporary erogenous zone. Whether the timing of this and other nudes of these years was related to

Courbet’s affair with Jo Heffernan is a matter of speculation. It is clear, in any case, that with Woman in the

Waves and Sleep Courbet was at the peak of his pictorial prowess.

The early Bacchante and Bather Sleeping Near a Brook (Figs 7 & 8) echo traditions in which the female nude
is identified with nature. Later Courbet created several paintings in which he made the allegory explicit
through the use of his title for them: The Source. His first version of the theme, painted in 1862 (Fig. 45),
can be understood as his Realist response to a painting by Ingres that had been shown at the Galerie Martinet
in 1861 (Fig. 46). Courbet’s second version, dated 1868, has a more awkward, hence more realistic, pose

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