READINGS OF GUSTAVE COURBET MARK EDWIN SOUNESS A ...

the Salon of 1848, and wonders if the artist will achieve recognition as a result, he does not
think that his ten exhibits have been positioned well. He blames the Provisional
Government – a government he sees as corrupt and rife with nepotism – for attempting to
suppress the public exposure of Courbet‟s work and argues that the artist‟s immediate
reputation will suffer as a result. 49 The artist‟s immediate reputation is extremely important
for Hawke. Courbet‟s work is about the era in which he lives, and Hawke sees its public
reception as instrumental within the teleological process of social reform that is central to
the political imperatives of the moment. Courbet‟s work should be exhibited now, he
argues, even if the philosophical principles driving its inception make certain that its
recognition in the future is guaranteed. 50
Hawke adopts a positivist view of society in which the development of physical
and moral nature is considered a teleological process of reform. This view is rooted in the
disciplines of biology and physiology in circulation around the first half of the nineteenth
century in France, many of which are deployed by positivist philosophers of the time to
formulate a science of society and its historical development. 51 Positivists of that period see
impitoyablement rejetées par messieurs les jugeurs du Louvre, et Thoré n‟a pas eu le bonheur de
découvrir la pauvre mansarde de Courbet, comme il avait fait jadis de celle de Th. Rousseau.‟
Comparing Courbet with Rousseau in this way, Hawke indicates his general support for artists who
create a humantarian aesthetic. As Neil Mc Williams notes, Thoré recognised Rousseau‟s potential
to „ally a feeling for nature with an equally strong feeling for the destiny of humanity‟; see
McWilliam, 1993, p184.
49 Hawke, ibid, 16 April 1848, p4: „Il [Courbet] y est bien représenté par dix tableau; mais tous sont
si mal placés, qu‟ils perdent presque toute leur valeur. La commission chargée par le Gouvernement
de placer les tableaux n‟a pas été bien inspirée: c‟est très fâcheux pour la réputation immédiate d‟un
homme qui mérite d‟être connu.‟
50 ibid, p4: „Sans doute l‟avenir le placera non loin de ces hardis génies devant lesquels toute critique
tombe impuissante; mais l‟artiste vit dans le présent aussi, et ne demande pas mieux que d‟être
convenablement présénté au public.‟
51 In positivism, physiology was developed as part of the broader science of biology. In the famous
medical dictionary of the well-known Belgian doctor and medical scientist Pierre-Hubert Nysten –
later editions of which were rewritten by the positivists Émile Littré and Charles Robin – a lengthy
49