Gustave Courbet
Courbet and Cubism

Two 19th-century artists prepared the way for the emergence of Cubism in the 20th century: Courbet and Cézanne. Cézanne's contributions are well-known. Courbet's importance was announced by Guillaume Apollinaire, poet-spokesperson for the Cubists. Writing in Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques (1913) he declared, "Courbet is the father of the new painters." Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes often portrayed Courbet as the father of all modern art.

Both artists sought to transcend the conventional methods of rendering nature; Cézanne through a dialectical method revealing the process of seeing, Courbet by his materialism. The Cubists would combine these two approaches in developing a revolution in art.

On a formal level, Courbet wished to convey the physical characteristics of what he was painting: its density, weight, and texture. Art critic John Berger said: "No painter before Courbet was ever able to emphasize so uncompromisingly the density and weight of what he was painting." This emphasis on material reality endowed his subjects with dignity. Berger observed that the Cubist painters "were at great pains to establish the physical presence of what they were representing. And in this, they are the heirs of Courbet."
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