Physical description
A beach in the foreground; beyond, the sea, under a cloudy sky with purple and orange hues.
Place of Origin
Etretat, France (painted)
Date
1869 (painted)
Artist/maker
Courbet, Gustave, born 1819 - died 1877 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
oil on canvas
Marks and inscriptions
69 G Courbet
Dimensions
Height: 60 cm estimate, Width: 82.2 cm estimate, Height: 100 cm frame, Width: 120 cm frame, Depth: 13 cm frame
Object history note
Formerly in the collection of Henri Hecht, who lent the work to the 1882 Courbet exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Purchased by Constantine Alexander Ionides from Hollander and Cremetti, 26 february 1883, for £500. Subsequently bequeathed to the V&A in 1900.
Historical significance: This painting belongs to a series of seascape at low tide inaugurated in 1865 while Courbet sojourned in Trouville (Normandy). CAI.59 shows a serene sea at low tide overwhelmed by a cloudy sky enlivened by a warm palette. It was executed at Etretat on the Normandy coastline during the summer 1869 and is a fine example of Courbet’s late period when his art came under the influence of both John Constable (1776-1837) and J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851).
There is no human reference in this painting entirely devoted to the emptiness of the large sky reflecting onto the sea surface. Particularly remarkable is the materiality given to the painting thanks to thick layers of paint applied with a knife. There is no equivalent in French art at this period to Courbet’s experimentations, which enjoyed a great success, at the time, in the British art market.
This painting witnessed a turning point in Courbet’s career as he progressively abandoned any representation of details to focus on the global rendering of forms after the motif, so moving away from naturalistic representation. CAI.59 illustrates therefore a new stage in the development of realism, gradually evolving towards impressionism.
This powerful seascape may have been influenced by the panoramic views of the early French photographer Gustave Le Gray.
Historical context note
Although France and England became the new centres of landscape art in the 18th century, the Italian and Dutch traditions retained their authority. However the Arcadian vision of Italy increasingly tended towards a more precise observation of nature. Some of the most exciting developments took place in Venice, in the soft scenes of Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788), inspired by Claude Lorrain (1604-1682), and the fresh, spontaneous landscapes of Marco Ricci (1676-1730). Wealthy patrons, often accompanied by artists, on The Grand Tour, created a market for veduta and capriccio paintings, respectively topographical and fantasist landscape paintings. Landscape conventions were further enriched by foreign artists working in Italy, responding both to the beauty of Italian light and scenery celebrated by the Latin poets and vividly captured in the most popular landscapes of Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675).
Descriptive line
Oil on canvas, 'L'Immensité', Gustave Courbet, 1869
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
C.J.Holmes, 'The Constantine Ionides Bequest, Article III - The French Landscape Painters', The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 5, no. 19 (Oct. 1904), pp. 27.
'When, (...) as in L'Immensité, he [Courbet] is face to face with the grand impassiveness of nature his own impassiveness makes him unconsciously sympathetic. No other painter has so powerfully impressed upon us the solid menace and vast desolation of the sea, or the tragic prosy truth of such a scene as the famous Funeral at Ornans. (...) With Courbet all sense of fine pigment vanishes, We have in his work a direct and forcible statement of things seen, but it is conveyed to us in terms of a substance like plaster or mortar or putty. Even when the things seen are fine and noble it is impossible not to regret that the language used to interpret them is so coarse and unattractive. (...) From Courbet's plastered paint it is but a short step to the spotty lumpy surfaces of the Impressionists, to the callous and inexpressive square brushwork which was the fashion on the Continent a few years ago, and to the British compromise between various degrees of unpleasant texture'
Fernier, Robert, La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet: catalogue raisonné, Geneva, Fondation Wildenstein, 1978, vol. II, cat. 696 p. 84.
Kauffmann, C.M., Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, II. 1800-1900, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 21, cat. no. 54.
The following is the full text of the entry:
Gustave COURBET (1819-77)
French School
Born at Ornans (Doubs), he went to Paris in 1840. Although he attended the Atelier Suisse, he was largely self-taught as an artist. He painted portraits, landscapes and scenes from country life in a very realistic manner and became the acknowledged leader of the 19th century realists in painting. From 1844 he exhibited in the Salon. He joined the Commune in 1871 and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for having been implicated in the destruction of the Colonne Vendôme. In 1873 he settled in Switzerland, where he died.
Lit. G. Riat, Gustave Courbet, Paris, 1906; G. Mack, Gustave Courbet,1951.
54
L'IMMENSITE
Signed and dated lower left 69 G. Courbet
Canvas
23 5/8 x 32 3/8 (60 x 82.2)
Ionides Bequest
CAI.59
A smaller version with minor variations (49 x 54 cm.) belonged to Serge Morin in the 1940s and, ca. 1950, to Mme Katia Granoff. A painting of the same subject, treated differently in detail, is in the Bristol City Art Gallery (L'Eternité, 64.7 x 79.3 cm.; Catalogue of oil paintings, 1957, p. 98, pl. 620).
Prov. Henri Hecht; c. 1884-86, Constantine Alexander Ionides; bequeathed to the Museum in 1900.
Exh. Courbet, École des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1882, no. 110 (Marée basse, soleil couchant, lent by Henri Hecht); French and Dutch Loan Collection, Edinburgh International Exhibition, 1886, no. 1086 (no. 21 of Mem. cat.; lent by C. A. Ionides); French and Dutch Romanticists, Dowdeswell Galleries, 1889, no. Ill; Winter Exhibition, R. A., 1896, no. 50; Pictures of the French School, Corporation of London Art Gallery, Guildhall, 1898, no. 143; The modern French School, Birmingham Art Museum, 1898, no. 7.
Lit. Review of Winter Exhibition, R. A., in Athenaeum, 15 Feb. 1896, p. 223; A. Estignard, Courbet, sa vie, ses oeuvres, 1896, p. 166 (wrongly still given as belonging to H. Hecht); Sir C. Holmes in Burl. Mag., vi, 1904-05, p. 27, pl. iv; F. Rutter in L' Art et les Artistes, v, 1907, p. 10, repr. p. 12; Long, Cat. Ionides Coll., 1925, p, 13, pl. 8; C. Leger, Courbet, Paris, 1929, pl. 54; id., Courbet et son temps, Paris, 1948, fig. 40.
Bertrand Tillier, et al. Gustave Courbet Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux , 2007, cat. 120, p. 274.
Exhibition catalogue
100 Great Paintings in The Victoria & Albert Museum, London: V&A, 1985, p. 172.
The following is the full text of the entry:
"Gustave Courbet 1818-1877
French School
L'IMMENSITÉ
Signed and dated lower left 69 G. Courbet
Oil on canvas, 60 X 82.2 cm
CAI.59. Ionides Bequest.
Reviewing the recently (1901) bequested Ionides Collection in 1904, Sir Charles Holmes wrote of Courbet's paint surface as 'plaster or mortar or putty ... but a short step from the spotty, lumpy surfaces of the Impressionists ... ' Such negative criticism may now be out of date, yet the same writer also spoke more admiringly of L'Immensité; 'When however, ... he is face to face with the grand impassiveness of nature, his own impassiveness makes him unconsciously more sympathetic. No other painter has so powerfully impressed upon us the stolid menace and vast desolation of the sea ... '
Courbet spent the late summer of 1869 at Etratat, on the Normandy coast, a village popular with painters since the early years of the century. In 1864 he had written to Victor Hugo, thinking he might be visiting the latter at his seaside house in Guernsey '... I love the solid ground, the orchestra of flocks that inhabit our mountains. The sea! the sea! with all its beauty it saddens me. In its joyous moods it reminds me of a laughing tiger, in its melancholy moods it suggests crocodile tears and in its howling fury a caged monster that cannot devour me ... ' An ostensible preference for landscape but implying a strong attraction to the sea. In 1865 and 1866 he spent two summers at Trouville, where, as described by Gerstle Mack, he painted seascapes 'full of light and air, without a trace of social significance.' Three years later he made similar paintings, including the brilliantly clear-skied Cliffs at Etratat after a storm, in the Louvre and intensive studies of darker, angrier waters. Helene Toussaint observed that this was the first time he had used such large canvases with no animal or human figures. The Ionides painting, smaller than the large 'Waves' in the Louvre and Berlin is in type more daring: totally without human reference - not even a boat on the distant horizon. To quote Toussaint again, such treatment of water and clouds had been more part of the British tradition of painting although Turner and Constable 'had a strong influence in France, this aspect of their work was not readily understood ... ' Courbet's seascapes 'belong rather to the subsequent course of French painting than to its previous history.'
Rosemary Miles"
J. H. Rubin, Courbet, Paris-London, 2003, p. 259, fig. 164.
C. Léger, Courbet, Paris, 1929, pl. 54.
'Review of Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy' in Athenaeum, 15 Feb. 1896, p. 223.
A. Estignard, Courbet, sa vie, ses oeuvres, 1896, p. 166.
Wrongly still given as belonging to H. Hecht.
Sir C. Holmes in The Burlington Magazine, vi, 1904-05, p. 27, pl. iv.
F. Rutter in L' Art et les Artistes, v, 1907, p. 10, repr. p. 12.
B.S. Long, Catalogue of the Constantine Alexander Ionides collection. Vol. 1, Paintings in oil, tempera and water-colour, together with certain of the drawings, London, 1925, p, 13, pl. 8.
C. Léger, Courbet et son temps, Paris, 1948, fig. 40.
Evans, M., with N. Costaras and C. Richardson, John Constable. Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: V&A, 2011, p. 34, fig. 32.
Exhibition History
Gustave Courbet (Musée Fabre, Montpellier 14/06/2008-28/09/2008)
Gustave Courbet (Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais 13/10/2007-28/01/2008)
The Modern French School (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 01/01/1898-31/12/1898)
Pictures of the French School (Corporation of London Art Gallery, Guildhall 01/01/1898-31/12/1898)
Winter Exhibition (Royal Academy of Arts 01/01/1896-31/12/1896)
French and Dutch Romanticists (Dowdeswell Galleries 01/01/1889-31/12/1889)
French and Dutch Loan Collection (Edinburgh International Exhibition 01/01/1886-31/12/1886)
Courbet (Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris 01/01/1882-31/12/1882)
Materials
Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Seascapes
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
