Gerald Peter's checking out would make this a perfect bakers dozen, except then the bells would be rolling a version of the song from the Wizard of Oz, Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, while Pete Stremmel wonders put loud "did the ###### pay the court ordered judgment before he went toes up?"
At the end of summer 1849, Courbet started working on his first monumental painting. He was a relatively unknown artist back then, but he found his path to fame by shocking contemporary art critics. The artist used a canvas of huge dimensions, usually reserved for a “noble” genre of history painting, to present an ordinary subject, with no idealisation. What was even worse, it is a frozen-like portrayal of somber middle-class citizens at a graveside in Courbet’s home province. There is no heroism at all! At the Salon of 1850-1851, people were outraged, decrying “the ugliness” of the characters and the ordinariness of the whole scene. Courbet’s use of the common people as a grand subject was deemed a radical act–”the engine of revolution,” as one critic said.
To read more on Daily Art:
http://www.dailyartmagazine.com/funeral-paintings-of-western-art/
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