READINGS OF GUSTAVE COURBET MARK EDWIN SOUNESS A ...

workers do not want any of it.‟ 22 The kind of art connected with the leisured class is
symptomatic of this widespread social and political corruption. 23 The remedy is a didactic
artform, an artform capable of raising the spirits of the workers with the promise of a
society free of privilege and corruption. Among the artists capable of producing such an
artform, Hawke mentions Gustave Courbet, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-François Millet,
Philippe-Auguste Jeanron, Gabriel Lefébure, Louis Coignard and Tony Johannot, a group
of painters whose works were often categorised in the very styles Hawke deprecates. 24 He
maintains that these artists are capable of winning the favour of the people because they
point the way to a better society, a society free of bourgeois depravity. 25 Yet, Hawke feels
that some of these artists, such as Courbet and Lefébure, are not given prominence at the
Salon and their paintings are either hidden in corners or obscured by countless bourgeois
works that uphold the corrupt values of the state. 26 In the critic‟s opinion, it is crucial that
22 See Pierre Hawke, „Quelques mots sur le Salon de peinture au Louvre. 1848,‟ Le Représentant du
peuple, 1 May 1848, p4: „Sachez-le bien, le peuple, les travailleurs ne veulent pas de cette espèce
d‟art doucereux et nul, qui, flattant le goût dépravé des hommes de loisir, les plonge davantage dans
un honteux népotisme. Les travailleurs n‟en veulent pas.‟
23 See footnote 22 and Neil Mc William, Dreams of Happiness, Social Art and the French Left 1830-
1850, Princeton University Press, 1993, p300. In contrast to such „sterile‟ art, as both Mc William
and Patrick Le Nouëne have observed, social and political redemption for Hawke was contingent on
the promotion of a revolutionary aesthetic embodied in the works of artists like Courbet; see Neil
Mc William, 1993, pp300-301, and Patrick Le Nouëne, „Première réception des tableaux exposés au
Salon de 1850-1851 et regroupés par les historiens de l‟art sous l‟étiquette réaliste,‟ Exigences de
réalisme dans la peinture française entre 1830 et 1870, Chartres, 1983, p58.
24 See Pierre Hawke, „Quelques mots sur le Salon de peinture au Louvre, 1848,‟ Le Représentant du
peuple, 28 April 1848, p4.
25 See ibid, p4.
26 See ibid, p4: „Si un sentiment et une pensée élevés eussent guidé dans le groupement des tableaux,
aurions-nous le chagrin de trouver l‟oeuvre d‟un homme de génie côte à côte avec celle du crétin le
plus avéré? Trouverions-nous des tableaux d‟un mérite transcendant relégués dans des coins
obscures? Des bijoux seraient-ils enfouis sous une couche de fumier? Delacroix, Millet, Jeanron,
Lefébure, Coignard, Courbet, Johannot, coudoyés par des bourgeois!‟
Gabriel Lefébure was born in Falaise. He studied under A. Hesse and Court. His painting debut was
at the 1846 Salon. His painting entitled Magdalene Dying was shown at the 1864 Salon and was
acquired by the State. Notable works include Head of a Saint in Ecstasy (Bagnères-de-Bigorre),
Tower of the White Queen (Rouen) and Magdalene Dying (Vire). See relevant entry in E. Benezit,
Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, et graveurs, 3 rd ed.,
Librairie Grund, Paris, 1976.
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