Gustave Courbet

Courbet announced that he could not paint an angel because he had never seen one, and built a career on that position. A Burial at Ornans, showing an ordinary village funeral at the scale reserved for history painting, was received in 1850 as something close to an insult.

Realism was his word for it and he used it as a banner. When the 1855 Exposition rejected his work he built his own pavilion next door and charged admission.

The politics were not decorative. He took part in the Paris Commune, was held responsible for the destruction of the Vendôme Column, served time and was billed for its reconstruction, which drove him into exile in Switzerland where he died. The late seascapes and the hunting scenes get less attention than the manifestos, which is a shame. The paint in them is thick, physical and applied with a palette knife.