1819-1877. French artist, a portrait, genre,
and landscape painter. Reacting against
academic trends, both Classicist and
Romantic, he sought to establish a new
realism based on contemporary life. His
Burial at Ornans 1850 (Louvre, Paris),
showing ordinary working people gathered
round a village grave, shocked the public and
the critics with its `vulgarity'. His spirit
of realism was to be continued by Manet. In
1871 Courbet was active in the Paris Commune
and was later imprisoned for six months for
his part in it.