Dandy, bohemian, realist and prisoner · 1819 -1877

Gustave Courbet uses self-portraits to invent his public figure: young dandy, worried artist, independent realist then political prisoner.

Gustave Courbet was born in Ornans in 1819 and died in exile in Switzerland in 1877. Arriving in Paris in 1839, he trained largely through copying at the Louvre and through an intense practice of self-portraiture. In the 1840s, before imposing realism, he explored several identities. Self-portrait with a black dog shows him as a young dandy installed in a Franche-Comté landscape, elegantly dressed, accompanied by a spaniel and looking at the viewer from an elevated position. The striped collar, the pipe, the hair and the theatrical expressions then allow us to try the roles of bohemian, romantic, musician or desperate man. These images are not only narcissistic: for lack of models constant, the painter uses his own face to study light, matter and emotion while building his reputation. After 1848, Courbet gave contemporary subjects a monumental scale and made his independence a manifesto. The self-portrait remains linked to this public construction, notably in L'Atelier du painter where he occupies the center. His commitment during the Commune led to imprisonment in Sainte-Pélagie. Around 1872, he depicted himself behind a screened window, pipe in mouth. The dandy of the beginnings became an artist subject to political history, but the gaze remains direct. From the black dog to the prison, the series thus records the transformation of one individual identity in artistic and civic position. The "Self-portraits of Gustave Courbet" selection notably compares Self-portrait with a black dog - Gustave Courbet and Self-portrait with a striped collar - Gustave Courbet. His reading favors space.

Courbet does not just show his face: he tests the roles through which an artist conquers, asserts and then pays for his independence.