untitled (Portrait of a Man)
Artist
Gustave Courbet
(Ornans, France, 6/10/1819 - 12/31/1877, La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland)
Title
untitled (Portrait of a Man)
Creation Date
1870
Century
late 19th century
Dimensions
17 1/8 in. x 13 5/8 in. (43.5 cm x 34.61 cm)
Object Type
drawing
Creation Place
Europe, France
Medium and Support
charcoal and white highlights on paper
Credit Line
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, Artine Artinian Collection
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
This unpublished drawing was part of an extensive bequest of works on paper--primarily of drawn portraits, self-portraits, and caricatures from France--from the preeminent scholar of Guy de Maupassant, Bard professor, and Bowdoin graduate, Artine Artinian. The work is one of many expressive portrait drawings that Courbet created during his career in which he typically used charcoal on brown paper. The perspective from below monumentalizes the boldly sculpted face and massive shoulders of the unknown sitter. The wallowing hair and expressive facial features are described with masterly detail, elevating this drawing to a monument not for an individual, but for the working class. In the late 1860s and until his imprisonment in 1871, after the Commune, Courbet reengaged with the politically motivated subjects of his early work. In the 1840s and 1850s he had portrayed laborers and peasants in a realist style that became foundational for European modernism.
Additional Media
22.2006.jpg
