NARRATOR:
The fishing village of Etretat on the coast of Normandy was popular with painters throughout the 19th century. The dramatic opening in the cliff, called the Porte d’Aval, looks the same today as when Gustave Courbet painted it in 1869. A contemporary critic was impressed by this picture:
CASTAGNARY [ACTOR]:
“Cliffs at Etretat with its simplicity of composition, its gray rocks topped with a velvety carpet of plants, its waves heaving to the farthest horizon, and, above all, its truthful rendering which banishes art from the picture and leaves only Nature, is most striking, astonishing, moving, and must rouse admiration in every spectator.”
NARRATOR:
Courbet chose to ignore the picturesque aspects of the site and its appeal to tourists. Instead, he reduced human presence to a few fishing boats on an empty beach. He makes no moral point and tells no story, painting just what he sees: the rough white sand, a few scattered rocks, the cliffs rising majestically from the sea. Close visual observation, he felt, was key to his art:
COURBET [ACTOR]:
“Painting is an art of sight and should therefore concern itself with things seen; it should, therefore, abandon both historical scenes and poetic subjects.”
NARRATOR:
Courbet was a rebel in both art and politics. He famously refusing to accept the coveted Cross of the Legion of Honor from emperor Napoleon III. He later joined the Commune, the socialist opposition to the government. After the bloody defeat of the Commune in 1871, Courbet fled to Switzerland, where he spent the remainder of his life in exile.
Cliff at Étretat, the Porte d' Aval
1869
Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
On View
The extension of a railway line from Paris via Le Havre brought tourism to the tiny fishing village of Étretat in the 1850s. Writers and artists soon flocked to the town, its picturesque half-mile of beach, and its striking rock formations. Guy de Maupassant, Jacques Offenbach, Camille Corot, Eugène Boudin, and Claude Monet all spent time there, but none conjured its crumbled cliff faces and chill, frothy sea more effectively than Courbet, who spent five weeks in an Étretat cottage during the fall of 1869. His rugged method of paint application—using a palette knife as often as a brush—was ideally suited to the rough topography and lonely aspect of the place.
Details
- Artist Name: Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
- Title: Cliff at Étretat, the Porte d' Aval
- Date: 1869
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 25-3/4 x 32 in. (65.4 x 81.3 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1969.06.2.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Édouard-Napoléan-Cesar-Edmond, 5th Duc de Trévise, Paris (1883-1946).
[Galerie Alfred Daber, Paris, sold 1949 to];
[Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, stock no. 5371, sold October 1950 to];
Mr. and Mrs. R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Pennlyn, Pennsylvania, sold 1969, through Jane Wade, to;
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[Galerie Alfred Daber, Paris, sold 1949 to];
[Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, stock no. 5371, sold October 1950 to];
Mr. and Mrs. R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Pennlyn, Pennsylvania, sold 1969, through Jane Wade, to;
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[on loan]
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1969-08-18 to 1969-12-15
- Riat, Georges, Gustave Courbet, peintre, p. 268
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best,2010, cat. 632 p. 321
- Bénédite, Léonce; Jean Laran and Philippe Gaston-Dreyfus, Courbet,pl. XLI pp. 97-98
- Lindon, Raymond, Gazette des Beaux-Arts,fig. 4 pp. 353-360
- Fernier, Robert, La Vie et l'Oeuvre de Gustave Courbet: Catalogue Raisonné: Peintures 1866-1877, p. 97
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum,1989, p. 120
- Bénédite, Léonce; Jean Laran and Philippe Gaston-Dreyfus, Gustave Courbet, With a Biographical and Critical Study,pl. XLI pp. 81-82
- Morse, John D., Old Master Paintings in North America,1979, p. 69
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1,2006,
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