Category Archives: Paris France

Our trip to Paris France May 2013

The Pantheon, Marie Curie, and St. Genevieve

Pantheon exterior (courtesy: Wikipedia)

THE PANTHEON : In search of notable Parisian women, we visited the Pantheon, the Church-turned-Mausoleum-and-Back-and-Forth. Best to think of it like Westminster Abbey in London: a public space that has religious threads and history. The Pantheon is home of many French luminaries; we were interested in the sarcophagus of Marie Curie and the huge mural paintings about St. Genevieve, the Patron Saint of Paris.

: Pantheon Interior

: Monument to the French Revolutionaries

: Interior Dome and Arches of the Pantheon

MARIE CURIE: Although she died in 1934, she wasn’t interred in the Pantheon until 1995. The guard told us the the enormous underground marble crypt where the luminaries of France are interred closed at 6:00 so we hustled. Almost not fast enough.

: Marie Curie’s Tomb

: Nearly Locked in the Crypt

Marie (Sklodowska) Curie won not one, but two, Nobel Prizes. In 1903 she, her husband Pierre, and the French physicist Henri Bequerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radioactivity, during the course of which Marie and Pierre discovered the elements polonium and radium. Husband Pierre, considered one of the major players in founding modern Physics, died in 1905 at the early age of 47 from a horse-carriage accident. Marie lived on another 28 years.

The practical benefit of the Curies’ research was almost immediate: in the medical field, x-rays could used to improve surgery. In World War I, Marie Curie equipped French ambulances with x-ray equipment and drove them herself to the front lines, and trained doctors and nurses in the use of the equipment. In 1911, Marie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for further work in the field of radioactivity . Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 67, from leukemia caused by exposure to radiation. In her day, no one realized the kind of safety precautions necessary to deal with radioactive material.

Marie Curie’s life and family illustrate the often close circles of work and marriage in French science. Marie’s brother-in-law, Jacques, was a physicist, and her father- in-law, Eugene, a medical physician. Her daughter Irene won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, with her husband Frederick Joliot-Curie, for figuring out how to turn her parents’ discovery of natural radioactive elements into artificial ones. Radioactive materials for medicine and scientific research could thereby be created quickly, cheaply, and plentifully. Tragically, Irene also died from leukemia, caused by exposure to radioactive polonium when a capsule of it exploded in her laboratory.

Marie Curie’s granddaughter (Irene’s daughter), Helene Joliot, became a noted nuclear physicist. She married a French nuclear physicist Michel Langevin, whose grandfather (Paul Langevin) had had an affair with the widowed Marie. At the time this had caused a scandal in Paris; Paul Langevin had been one of Pierre Curie’s doctoral students and was married at the time. Marie’s grandson, Pierre Joliot-Curie, is a much-awarded biologist.

Marie’s other daughter, Eve Curie Labouisse, trained as a concert pianist and later as a journalist Eve married an American and lived in New York, dying in 1987 at the age 102. As a journalist, Eve wrote a long-enduring biography of her grandmother Marie Curie; it was turned into a Hollywood film starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, and thus Marie Curie became even more renowned, among Americans at least, than before.

ST. GENEVIEVE:

“Death of St. Genevieve” wall mural, the Pantheon, by Jean Paul Laurens

St. Genevieve, the Patron Saint of Paris, was older than Marie Curie by about 1500 years. Genevieve was considered the patron saint of Paris. A pious, ascetic 5th-century nun from Nanterre, she convinced the Parisians to man-up and not desert their city when Attila threatened it with his Huns in 451 AD. Attila was the one who finally gave up. About 15 years later, another tribe from the east, the Franks, did capture Paris. Genevieve once again stepped forward, this time convincing the conquerors not to starve out the Parisian population. So respected was she by the new rulers that Clovis (Louis), who is considered the founder of the French “nation”, built a church for her. Genevieve was buried there. This church was across the street from the present Pantheon, and after a major reconstruction in the 19th century, is one of the national libraries of France, St. Genevieve’s Library (Ste Genevieve Bibliotheque).

Fast forward about 1500 years: in the 18th c., King Louis XV fell gravely ill, prayed to her for intercession, and miraculously recovered. In time-honored tradition, the King commissioned a new monument in her honor, and (only) twenty years later, the cornerstone of today’s Pantheon was laid. But the French Revolution, in its divorce of church from state, took over the building, and re-consecrated it as the crypt for the “Great Men” –i.e. Leaders of the Revolution, plus Napoleon. St. Genevieve’s shrine and relics were first transferred to the nearby church St-Etienne-du-Mont, but then in 1793 her poor old bones were put on trial and condemned to public burning, for the crime of participating in “the propagation of error”–i.e., the Catholic religion. Her ashes were cast into the Seine.

(Today portions of St. Genevieve’s remains are in the church of St-Etienne, the church behind the Pantheon; these were transported from other locations in France.)

Eglise St- Etienne-du-Mont, St. Genevieve, Pantheon, Paris

Eglise St-Etienne-du-Mont, home to St. Genevieve’s remaining remains. (Construction cranes are common sights in Paris.)

But she got back in to the Pantheon: In the later 19th c., the French state decided it was time for a national reconciliation and regeneration. St. Genevieve and what she represented was a key theme of a huge project of wall murals. The imagery of the murals was supposed to meld French national and religious history, showing that they overlapped and were codependent. The great religious figures of French history were to be depicted – St Genevieve, Joan of Arc, St Denis – as well as those secular like Charlemagne and St Louis who had been important in the making of French history.

The mural painters, 40 or so, had the unenviable task of making all the warring political sides of 19th c France happy, the ultra-right who wanted all traces of the French Revolution eradicated and the ultra-left, who were unhappy to have anything related to the Roman Catholic Church exhibited in a public place, at public expense. The mural in the photo above is by Jean Paul-Laurens, who ironically held strong republican and anti-Church views. The mural is called “The Death of St. Genevieve”. St. Genevieve on her deathbed, surrounded by the various types of Parisians she had helped, either in her lifetime or through the centuries thereafter, was probably as “safe” a mural topic for the Pantheon as you could find.

Around Our Apartment

Nancy on the right bank of the Seine, with the Institut de France in the background.

Our apartment was located on Rue Mazarine, in back of the Institut de France in the 6e arrondissement on the Left Bank. The Institut, though not open to the public, is un-missable from most any spot in Paris; just look for its large Baroque dome designed in the 17th c. by Louis le Vau. Cardinal Mazarin, France’s most powerful political figure in the 17th c apart from Louis XIV, began a “college” here; he, and the college, deserved a glorious building with a glorious dome. Today the Institut de France heads five government-backed literary, fine arts, and scientific “Academies,” and administers museums, chateaux, and over 1000 foundations. Its most well-known Academy is the “Academie Francaise,” the group of 40 (mostly) males who allow/prevent any change to the official vocabulary of the French language. “E-mail”, for example, was banned in favor of “courriel”, a contraction of “courrier electronique.” Guess how many French went along with that?

Our neighborhood was part of St. Germain des Pres, with its lively cafes, art galleries, booksellers, grocery stores, pastry and chocolate shops galore, and open air markets. The Institut provided a quiet street for our apartment’s location–sleep was possible in the St. Germain des Pres!

: Cafe down the street from our apartment.

: Neighborhood Bike Rental stand

: “Tourist” bar in our neighborhood

: Many art galleries displayed tribal art

: Bookseller of ancient books and manuscripts

: Manuscript for sale by Herodote Bookstore

At the end of our street was the sweet Square Gabriel Pierne with a statue of “Caroline” (whoever she was), and across from that a garden with a statue of Voltaire. Around another corner was the side entrance to the French Mint. Our street was very narrow. Very. Note the delivery truck wedged between a building and a car in the photo below. I saw the car later; it was a bit banged up.

: Square Gabriel Pierne with statue of Caroline and accompanying human statue

: Voltaire, in garden near our apt.

: Side entrance to Paris Mint, close to our apartment.

: Oops! Truck wedged between car and scaffolding, on our apartment’s street

The Louvre was a mere 10 minutes walk across the pedestrian bridge the pont des Artes, and the Musee d’Orsay only a 15 minute walk down the Seine. The Seine contains all manner of boats. In addition to the tourist bateux, near our apartment was the home dock for the Fire and Rescue boat, manned by the “Sapeurs- Pompiers of Paris” (BSPP); they are part of the French Army’s Engineering Division, which provides the fire service for Paris. Several convenient buses were routed along the narrow streets near us and two Metro stops were in walking distance.

: Pont des Artes pedestrian bridge with the Louvre in the background

: Seine River rescue boat, part of the Fire Brigade of Paris (Sapeurs-Pompiers)

: Bus barreling down narrow street of our neighborhood

: Ann and Michael at dinner in our apt.

A wonderful apartment.

Louis Pasteur and French Science

Why am I standing inside a crypt?

Crypt of Louis Pasteur and his wife

Michael and I visited the Pasteur Museum in Paris, devoted to the work of the revered French scientist of the 19th c, Louis Pasteur. This is his crypt. Pasteur’s ashes are under the granite tomb to the right. The crypt’s decor is Romanesque-Byzantine, to put it mildly, with sparkling gold and multi-colored mosaics all around that illustrate Pasteur’s life work.

The Pasteur Museum consists of a recreation of his laboratory, the apartments where he and his wife made their home, and their burial crypt under the apartment. It’s run by the world-famous Pasteur Institute (similar to our CDC).

Pasteur was not a promising student in school, considered by his teachers to be a bit slow and dreamy. He even failed some of his exams. But later in life…

Rabies: Pasteur studied rabies in dogs and rabbits, and from those studies was the first to develop a vaccine for dogs and a treatment for humans bitten by a rabid animal . Since all the dogs in Paris, much less in France, could not be vaccinated at once, Pasteur sought a vaccine to protect humans after they had been bitten by a rabid animal.

Mosaic in Crypt of Louis Pasteur–Rabid Dog

Initially, his work was proven on animals. The notion that it might work on humans was met with scepticism. He needed a success on a human. By accident, a nine-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog and was near death appeared. Pasteur took a considerable risk in treating the child, as he was not a licensed physician in status-conscious France, and could have been prosecuted under the law. A licensed doctor had to actually give the injection. But the boy lived, and in gratitude a member of the French nobility gave 40,000 francs to establish the Institut Pasteur.

Pasteur Institute Museum Exterior

Shortly after, 16 Russian peasants who had been bitten by a rabid wolf were transported to Paris from Smolensk, Russia for treatment. Pasteur saved about half of them. The Czar of Russia kicked in with another 100,000 francs for the Institut, plus a Cross of the Order of St. Anne for Pasteur himself.

The Institut is now home to 10 Nobel Prize winners.

Recreation of laboratory of Louis Pasteur

The Museum not only shows Pastuer’s and his wife’s spacious apartments, decorated in the gloomy-doomy style of the late Victorian era, but also a recreation of his lab. It’s amazing! How could anyone have discovered anything, given the instrumentation then available? Pasteur’s strength evidently came from his rigorous reliance on the scientific method in investigating problems. What else did he achieve?

Anthrax: Pastuer solved was the mystery of anthrax, which saved the French livestock industry. Cows and farm animals infected with anthrax were readily identified by farmers, who then slaughtered them and buried the carcasses in the field. But anthrax kept reappearing. Pasteur showed that worms in the infected soil ascended to the surface and into the grass, to be eaten by living farm animals, thus perpetuating the anthrax cycles.

Microbes: Pasteur characterized what we would call microbes, for which anyone today who has had the least surgery should be grateful. This work inspired the English doctor Joseph Lister to come up with an antiseptic wash for surgical instruments and for hand-washing by doctors and nurses, dramatically decreasing sepsis infections for patients undergoing operations

Pasteurization: Pasteur also worked with the silkworm industry in France and the beer industry. For the beer industry, he worked on fermentation to discover why certain batches of beer went sour. From this came the concept of “pasteurization,” which we in the U.S. associate with milk rather than beer. Pasteur was suitably rewarded by a grand-prize medal for his work on wines at the Exposition of 1867.

When Pasteur died, the nation of France gave him a state funeral at Notre-Dame, but then allowed his remains to be placed in a tomb at the Institut Pasteur.

Crypt of Louis Pasteur and wife

Location: . The Museum is located at 25 rue du Docteur Roux,75015 Paris. Metros: Pasteur or Volontaires. Open Monday through Friday afternoons, with tours at 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00. Closed in August. Bring a photo-ID, such as passport. Entrance fee is Euro 8, not covered by any Museum Pass. The “tour” lasts about an hour. Web site: http://www.pasteur.fr/ip/easysite/pasteur/fr/institut-pasteur/musees# . Phone 01.45.68.82.83. Note: The entrance is not well-marked. Photos are allowed only in the crypt.

More on Pasteur…

Louis Pasteur

Who was Louis Pasteur? He born in 1822, 7 years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, to a tanner, in the south of France, near Dijon. His father was a brave and decorated Sargent under Napoleon. Labelled a “Bonapartist” by the monarchy that was restored in 1815 after Napoleon’s fall, father Pasteur was kicked out of the Army in the reprisals that followed. Back to the tannery he went, determined that his children do well. However, son Louis did not have a promising start. His teachers in primary school declared him unusually slow and inclined to dream. But with his father’s gentle support, he persisted and eventually earned a doctorate in chemistry.

In theoretical chemistry, he worked in the field of crystals, but he was also interested in applied science. His most fundamental achievement in chemistry came from work he did to aid a manufacturer who was having trouble producing beetroot alcohol. In helping him, Pasteur thought that fermentation and putrefaction, both a form of living things, were not the result of just chemical changes but that living micro-organisms were involved. But where did these living organisms come from? Pasteur showed, by the scientific method, that they were in the air. He went high into the Alps to bottle the air, as he called it, reasoning the air would be so much purer at high altitudes. He used that air to see if substances would remain pure indefinitely if they were in pure air.-i.e., germ-free air. That would mean putrefaction of substances did not occur “spontaneously” but was caused by micro-organisms from our usual, contaminated air. He was right. His resulting theory of biogenesis (living things can only be produced by another living thing) overturned a major theory of 19th c. science, the idea of heterogenesis, (living things can generate spontaneously from non-living things). Pasteur is rightly considered one of the three founders of micro-biology. Although he did not, as is often popularly thought, “discover” the germ theory of disease, he helped it along immensely.

To make people, not just animals and plants, healthier, Pasteur proposed that bad microorganisms, once inside people, make them sick, which led to all sorts of changes in medicine to keep harmful micro-organisms out of the human body. In addition to Joseph Lister’s work with antiseptics in surgery, Pasteur promoted the unheard-of notion of surgeon’s washing their hands and instruments.

Marie Laurent Pasteur, wife of Louis Pasteur

Louis and Marie Laurent Pasteur

Pasteur married a daughter of the Rector of the Strasbourg Academy, Marie Laurent. They had five children, of whom only two survived childhood. Marie lived to the age of 84, and is buried in the crypt with husband Louis.

Louis Pasteur in many ways embodies the social and political transformation of France in the 19th c.From humble beginnings–a working-class father on the wrong side of the political regime to highest honors and a comfortable life– Pasteur’s life showcases the possibilities in 19th c France for the educated, the hard-working, and those interested in science. Because of this dedicated scientist and his supportive wife, we all live healthier lives.

Napoleon: Seeing History the Way the French Do ( or Might)

Nancy: despite the rain, off I went to Napoleon’s Tomb and the 5 Army Museums.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by J-L David

What could be more French than visiting the tomb and other monuments to French war dead? Ann, ever adventuresome, ventured along.

Napoleon’s Tomb and the Army Museums are inside a complex started by Louis XIV, the Sun King, known collectively as “Les Invalides.”

Paris, Dome church, St.Louis des Invalides church, Invalides, Napoleon's Tomb, Army Museum

Model of Dome Church, St.-Louis des Invalides Church, and Army Museums

First built was a long narrow church, St-Louis des Invalides, (in the adjacent model, it’s to the left of the big dome) This is where the common soldiers sat. It not being proper to have the monarch mingle near the common folk, Louis XIV then commissioned the Dome Church, where the King and his closest aristocracy attended mass. Surrounding both churches were dwellings for wounded or impoverished soldiers, “the Invalides”, somewhat like a vast American V.A. complex. Today a huge section of Les Invalides comprises five high-class Army Museums.

Church of St Louis-des-Invalides, Dome Church, Napoleon's Tomb

Church of St.-Louis des Invalides, for the common soldiery.

Dome Church, exterior (stock photo)

Napoleon’s tomb is inside the Dome Church. This view is looking at it from the Seine River. The church of St-Louis des Invalides and the Army museum complex are behind the Dome church from this direction.

Once you’re inside the Dome Church, you immediately notice three things: the great gilded altar for King Louis XIV on the first floor, the Baroque dome interior by Mansart, and Napoleon’s Tomb one floor down. In addition to the Tomb, this ground floor has numerous marble panels depicting the Great Man’s accomplishments in reforming the French state and society and those of the European areas he conquered.

: The King’s Altar at the Dome Church

: Inside the Dome, by Mansaart

: Napoleon’s Tomb, on the lower level of the Dome Church

: Napoleon’s Tomb up to Altar

“All This For One Man??”

Ann’s reaction: “All this for one man??” That’s likely to be yours, too, unless you are French or know French.

Ann split for the Impressionist art at the Orangerie.

I soldiered on to the main Army Museum, for a special exhibit on “Napoleon versus Europe, 1793-1815.”

This was a splendid multi-media exploration of Napoleon’s military and non-military efforts in conquering Europe, and the many European coalitions that formed and re-formed over a period of 25 years to finally defeated the French. We Americans usually know this end-point as “The Battle of Waterloo.”

The exhibit contained music, such as Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony, dramatic paintings, peace treaties, satirical British political cartoons, uniforms, and numerous volumes of the reformed law code known as the Napoleonic Code. The Napoleonic Code, still in effect in parts of the world today, legally dismantled the old feudal order with its many privileges for the tiny few. One showcase houses replicas of the beautiful jewels Napoleon gave his young Habsburg bride as part of his/their coronation. She rewarded him with a son, adding the possibility of a dynasty.

Napoleon and his troops were often greeted as Liberators by the common people wherever they went. But he took as well as he gave. He wanted to start and populate French museums and promote (natural) science. His troops looted art objects, especially from Italy, and brought exotic animals such as giraffes into France.

: How Napoleon really crossed the Alps to conquer Italy–on a mule

: Napoleon as the great leader, among his wounded soldiers (detail)

: Peace Treaty (Campoformio) showing Napoleon’s signature

: Napoleon’s troops greeted as liberators by the common people of Europe

: New Law Codes that swept away the legal basis of feudalism

: Napoleon crowning himself and his queen, as Pope looks on in horror

: Triumphal Procession of Loot, including exotic animals, into France.

: Napoleon Seizing Italian Art to populate new French museums

In the end, British fortitude, Napoleon’s great military miscalculation with his Russian Invasion, and a rally at the right moment by the Prussians ended Napoleon. He spent the last seven years of his life on a the remote, barren island controlled by the British, St. Helena. His remains were not placed in the Dome Church until 1840, when the “coast was clear.”

Outside the Army Museum, the coast definitely was not clear, as the rain descended even harder.

Macarons (meringue sandwich cookies with a cream filling).

But greeting me at home was a fine box of yummy macarons. Michael, who had stayed home to deal with a plumbing leak, had gone out between rainstorms to procure these delectables from G. Mulot. Yum!

The Orangerie

The Orangerie

Ann: despite the constant cold rain today, the lure of the Orangerie was irresistable.

Derain, The Niece…,1931

The Orangerie is a manageable size, compared to the Musee d’Orsay and certainly to the Louvre.

Thus I was able to visit this, my favorite, several times.

Picasso, Orangerie, Woman in a White Hat

Picasso, Woman in a White Hat, 1920

Even in the rain, lines and lines of people: the Museum Pass saved me. Using the special door for advanced reservations, I entered within a minute.

Thus I was quickly able to see this intriguing Picasso.

Cezanne, Portrait of his son, 1881

The Orangerie is known for its set of Monet’s “Water Lillies.” They are in the basement. Perhaps less well known is that the Orangerie is also home of the collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume.

Guillaume was a Paris art dealer, collector and supporter of some of the Impressionists. Upon his death in 1934, his wife Jean Walter completed his collection and donated it to the French state in 1954. The collection is full of the works of Renoir, Cezanne, Rousseau, Modigliani, Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Utrillo, and Soutine.

Matisse, the Violinist

I saw only one painting of Matisse that I had ever viewed before (and that was in San Francisco). To see all those others felt so fresh and inspiring.

Renoir, Claude Renoir, 1905

The trip was well worth the raindrops.

The Pompidou

Michael, Ann, and I went to the Pompidou the first day, jet-lagged-excited.

Pompidou Museum exterior

Apres-lunch. View from the restaurant terrace.

After lunch: on the terrace of the 6th floor restaurant overlooking Paris

First we had lunch, of course, with a good red wine. Photo opportunity on the 6th floor of the Pompidou, with Paris in the background.

Ann Surrounded by Miro Paintings

Joan Miro

Then off to view the art works.

Ann: my reaction to the Pompidou was amazement at the sheer number of pieces of the artists I like, such as the Spanish painting by Joan Miro. And by how many large canvases Miro painted. Previously I had seen only small works of his.

Matisse, La Blouse roumaine, 1940

The paintings by Matisse were overwhelming in their beauty and number.

Matisse, Auguste Pellerin II, 1917

Matisse Le violinste 1918

Matisse, Greta Prozor, 1916

And those of Kandisky!

Pompidou, Kandinsky, Bogen

Sculpture uniting the interior of the Museum and the exterior surroundings

With its large floor to ceiling windows and sculpture that was kind-of inside and sort-of outside, the building pulled together the art inside with the city of Paris from almost every view on each floor.

Ann reflecting on experiencing the Pompidou. Sheer Joy.

The Musee d’Orsay and Gustave Courbet

The Musee d’Orsay is a 10 minute walk from our apartment. Armed with our Museum Pass, which gets you in through a side door and saves about an hour waiting in the “ticket purchase” line (due to the slow lines at security), we have been not once but twice. In Europe, May 18 was “Free Museum Night” with long hours, free admission, and dance and music in some of the museums. (Note:The d’Orsay does not allow photography of any kind. Thus my photos are exterior shots only. All other are stock photos.)

Ann and Nancy at the d’Orsay, with the Louvre in the background

Museum Night, with music and dance inside and out.

Musee d’Orsay from across the Seine, at sunset.

The Musee d’Orsay Is a wonderful space converted in 1986 from a former railway station, the Gare d’Orsay. It specializes in art from 1848-1942, and holds the world’s largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works.

Built for the Universal Exhibition (World Fair) of 1900, the railway station showcased the Beaux Art style of architecture. Prior to the construction of the railway station, the site held government offices built in the early 19th c; they were burnt down along with the rest of the neighborhood in the violent civil war called the Paris Commune that broke out in Paris with the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1871. The site stood in ruins for the next 30 years, until a private company leased t the land to build a station. The new railway station served the rail needs of southwestern France and lasted until in 1939. When it then became too small to handle the larger trains coming into long-distance service, it was converted into a commuter train station. After several other uses in the 20th c, the Beaux Art station was slated for destruction in the 1970’s to make way for a large hotel. President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing decided to convert it instead to a new museum; the resulting museum d’Orsay opened in 1986.

I (Nancy) wanted to learn more about Gustave Courbet, the 19th c. artist.Though the Gaugin paintings and wood carvings in the d’Orsay were a close second for me.

Courbet loved to paint the face in his mirror.

We in the U.S. know a lot less about Courbet than about the French Impressionists. After the last 40 years of advertising, who wouldn’t recognize a Monet Water Lily?

Who was Gustave Courbet? Courbet was born in 1819, right after the end of the French Revolution-Napoleonic era in the region of France known as Franche-Comte, about 250 miles SE of Paris. His hometown, Ornans, lies between Dijon and Lausanne, Switzerland, on the banks of a tributary of the Doubs River. His father’s family was from the well-to-do landed gentry in this small town founded in the 6th c., though his mother’s family was publicly opposed to the Catholic Church ( an “anti-clerical”) during the Revolution. Her side “lost” when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815, but with no apparent consequences for the family. As a child Courbet grew up believing he was a natural singer, but it’s more likely he was just a noisy wild-child. This would show up later in his love of self-portraiture. At Church, he confessed to sins so preposterous the Catholic priests refused him absolution .Although he loved drawing from an early age, his future, like other young people in the 19th century, was controlled by his father. Papa (sensibly) wanted him to study law–wealth and honor for the family was more likely to be forthcoming. Finally Papa relented and at the age of 21, Courbet got to move to Paris.

Paris in 1840 was heaven for a young man. Papa, immediately alarmed, berated son Gustave as having succumbed to a dissolute life in The Wicked City. But the errant son was also studying the Masters in the Louvre. He became interested in portraits and landscapes. Not surprising to us today, but a bit off the beaten track in his day, where subjects were usually literary ones or romantic, sentimental clap-trap. And wild though he may have been, he saw the necessity of submitting canvases to the government-sanctioned “Salons,” ruled by the Academy of Fine Arts: without the approval of the government-appointed taste-makers, an artist was unlikely to sell his art. He submitted, his canvasses were accepted in 1848, and some sold. Courbet was launched.

France continued to have revolutions throughout the 19th c., –in 1830, in 1848, in 1870–and Courbet became known as a “democrat” and a “republican.” In art he was known as a Realist. The Realists though the artist should paint the everyday, the material, the rational, that backed by science and technology. Not for them Classicism, pursuing perfect Truth and Beauty and elegance; Nor Romanticism, fixated on sentimentality and unrestrained imagination beyond the realm of the material. Sometimes Courbet’s Realism produced the Shock of the Unpleasant; his “Bathers” of 1848 brought an outcry that the women were “disgustingly fat;” the Emperor Napoleon III, who preferred chic women, in disgust struck the painting with his riding crop.

But he persisted and by 1861, twenty years after he started, he had achieved considerable prestige, even if the government and the “official” art establishment still considered him a pest.He loved women, many women, usually his models, and never married. He wrote: ” My love will not stretch far enough to include a journey with a woman. Knowing there are women all over the world, I see no reason to carry one with me (on his travels).” At the age of 42, Courbet opened a school at 83 r. Notre-Dame-des Champs for rebellious students from the official School of Fine Arts, including providing models, including live models, including a live horse and ox in the studio, which he refused to house-break in the interest of Realism. Courbet evidently did not understand that an unhappy landlord would be an intolerant one, and out he went.

In 1870, further political instability rocked France caused by mistakes in foreign policy. Germany defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War, invaded all the way to Paris, and forced France into a humiliating peace treaty signed at Versailles. The reign of the current French government, that of Emperor Napoleon III, collapsed. Civil war broke out in the streets of Paris. Courbet sided with the Republican (left-wing) faction and in the ensuring Paris Commune was elected to its governing body. He became the President of the Art Commission of France, and swiftly abolished the official art academies. When the Commune met its end after a very short time, he was arrested by the new French government, and sentenced to nine months in prison.

Courbet was an easy target–a member of the Commune, and rich. A rich Republican? Surprisingly, he had considerable financial success later in his life, largely from his masses of landscapes, fashionable portraits, and still lifes, not from canvases addressing social problems. He came to employ a factory method of painting, allowing others to finish his paintings though they bore his name. In 1873, pursued at the age 54 by the reactionaries who now ran the French government, he slipped over the border into Switzerland. But, like the Energizer Bunny, he kept his art factory going, unfortunately sowing the ground for lots of forgeries. Ever the wild-child, he also drank more and more, consuming about 10 quarters of white wine a day, plus absinthe. Courbet died of cirrhosis of the liver, only 58 years old.