The Wave (La Vague)
Gustave Courbet
European Art
On View: European Art Galleries, 5th floor
This is one of several paintings focusing on cresting waves that Gustave Courbet made in Normandy. The paintings were radical for their anti-picturesque subject and their technique. Referencing his use of a palette knife to slather paint on the canvas in thick strokes, some critics thought the artist’s waves were too solid—too much like undisguised paint—to represent water. Paul Cézanne, who admired Courbet, noted that he “slapped paint on the way a plasterer slaps on stucco.” Popular caricaturists lampooned Courbet’s method.
Author Guy de Maupassant described witnessing Courbet at work on one of his wave paintings in his Étretat studio in 1869: “In a great room a fat, dirty, greasy man was spreading patches of white paint onto a big bare canvas with a kitchen knife. . . . He went and pressed his face against the windowpane to look at the storm. . . . . On the mantelpiece was a bottle of cider. . . . Every now and then Courbet would drink a mouthful and then go back to his painting.”
Author Guy de Maupassant described witnessing Courbet at work on one of his wave paintings in his Étretat studio in 1869: “In a great room a fat, dirty, greasy man was spreading patches of white paint onto a big bare canvas with a kitchen knife. . . . He went and pressed his face against the windowpane to look at the storm. . . . . On the mantelpiece was a bottle of cider. . . . Every now and then Courbet would drink a mouthful and then go back to his painting.”
MEDIUM
Oil on canvas
DATES
ca. 1869
DIMENSIONS
25 3/4 x 34 15/16 x 3in. (65.4 x 88.7 x 7.6cm)
frame: 32 1/4 x 41 x 3 in. (81.9 x 104.1 x 7.6 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
Signed lower left: "G. Courbet."
COLLECTIONS
European Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
41.1256
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is on view in European Art Galleries, 5th floor
CAPTION
Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877). The Wave (La Vague), ca. 1869. Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 34 15/16 x 3in. (65.4 x 88.7 x 7.6cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer, 41.1256 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 41.1256_PS9.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 41.1256_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2015
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