1863
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Mme L . . . (Laure Borreau) is a 1863 unspecified by Gustave Courbet, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a woman in a black lace dress and matching hat, her face half-lit by warm sunset light. Courbet painted her exactly as she was—no softening, no flattery. The shadows under her eyes and the fullness of her neck made some critics uncomfortable. He wanted art to show real life, not pretty lies. If you like this honest way of painting, look up technique: impasto.
Gustave Courbet painted four portraits of Madame Laure Borreau; this is the last and most highly developed. As a Realist, Courbet aimed to represent what he saw in the visible, tangible world. He represented Madame Borreau in a black silk dress embellished with lace and a matching hat. Gold and violet lights of sunset softly illuminate the background. However, the portrait is not idealized. Courbet’s inclusion of her shadowed eyes and full-fleshed neck prompted one critic to write, “I daresay in nature she may be very pretty, but in Courbet’s picture she is nothing less than offensive.”
Courbet once wrote of Laure Borreau, the sitter in this portrait, "I am in love with a splendid lady, the driving force behind my triumph."
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (UK: KOOR-bay; US: koor-BAY; French: ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting.
See the richer artist page
