COURBET, GUSTAVE (1819-1877), French painter, was born at Ornans (Doubs) on June io, 1819. He went to Paris in 1839 and worked at the studio of Steuben and Hesse; but he preferred to work out his own way by the study of Spanish, Flemish, and French painters. He painted his own portrait with his dog and "The Man with a Pipe," both of which were rejected by the jury of the Salon; but the younger school of critics, the neo-romantics and realists, loudly sang the praises of Courbet. The Salon of 185o found him triumphant with the "Burial at Ornans," the "Stone-Breakers," and the "Peasants of Flazey." Though Courbet's realistic work is not devoid of importance, it is as a landscape and sea painter, especially as a painter of forest scenes, that he will be most honoured by posterity. When Courbet had made a name as an artist he tried to promote democratic and social science, and under the Empire he wrote essays and dissertations. He refused the cross of the Legion of Honour offered to him by Napoleon III., and in was elected a member of the Paris Commune. Thus it happened that he was responsible for the destruction of the Vendome column. A council of war, before which he was tried, condemned him to pay the cost of restoring the column, 300,00o francs (L12,000). Courbet went to Switzerland in 1873 and died at La Tour du Peilz, on Dec. 3r, 1877.
See Champfleury, Les Granules Figures d'hier et d'aujourd'hui (i86i) ; Mantz, "G. Courbet," Gaz. des beaux-arts (1878) ; Zola, Mes Haines (1879) ; C. Lemonnier, Les Peintres de la Vie (1888) ; J. Meier-Graf e, Corot and Courbet (Stuttgart, i qo6) .