Page 46 - Courbet

Fig. 48. The Death of the Hunted Stag, 1867, Musée des Beaux- Fig. 49. Combat of Stags, 1861, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon.

Independence and authenticity are Courbet’s major concerns in both documents. He links his virility to them.
Champfleury acknowledges the association, describing Courbet’s Burial as ‘male, powerful and sincere’ in
1851.60 Courbet wants only to be who he is and to paint what he knows. Otherwise he is not true to himself
or to his identity.That identity, as we know, was inextricable from his provincial origins and his masculinity. He
had shed his efforts to fit into the Romantic trends evidenced by paintings prior to 1848. In The After-Dinner
at Ornans and A Burial at Ornans as well as a few landscapes, he actually named his birthplace.The After-Dinner
is set in the family home with his father and his friends. A Burial at Ornans is set in the new cemetery required
by recent health laws to be on the outskirts of the town.The cliffs, typical of his native region and which are
clearly visible from Ornans, are in the background. The point is that Courbet’s native region was not only
at the heart of his identity, it was a place where he could practice painting unfettered by Parisian discourses
and Salon critiques. Home was where Courbet could hunt, fish and hike (Fig. 48), as well as make images
testifying to those activities – ones that were manly and self-determined, in which man could perform his
dominance among nature’s wilds.Although we now know that he used stuffed animals as his models, Courbet’s
giant paintings of hunted stags (Fig. 49) can be read as a form of masculine braggadocio, for it appears as if he
observed them close to hand deep in uncharted territory.

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