Arts by Dylan: Courbet Canvas

Artist: Gustave Courbet, Woman with a Parrot, 1866

Gustave Courbet shocked the art world in 1866 with two paintings.  This one of a woman with a parrot was purchased by an American and hangs in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.  At the time nudity in art was not supposed to resemble real life even though many artists painted scenes from everyday life.  Nudity in art remained primarily to be shown as fantasy or goddess like similiar to Venus or Minerva.  

This painting by Courbet in 1866 and the more famous and more graphic Courbet painting "L'Orgine du monde" or "The Origin of the World" which hangs at the Orsay Museum in Paris turned the art world upside down and inside out.  This painting in particular was copied by Manet and was a favorite of many famous artists of the time including Cezanne. 

Courbet was famous during his time for his nude paintings because of his realism.  In modernd times it can be very controversial to photoshop a portriat to make them look slimmer or get rid of some flaws.  Many people would argue that the body positivity point of view of realism is a better representation of the human form than the fictional.  Courbet was the 1800's version of this point of view in art.