In a letter written to a friend in 1850, Gustave Courbet announced that “in our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies, I must address myself to them directly.” These words shed considerable light on Courbet’s art—and not just because Courbet’s subjects aren’t always the predictable, socially acceptable ones. There’s something direct and even savage (if by that we mean unconventional) in the way Courbet attacks the canvas: in the way he sponges or scrapes the paint, juxtaposes areas that are more or less realistically handled, and frames or arranges figures and objects in unexpected ways.

The risk factor in Courbet’s work is, aesthetically speaking, very high.

The risk factor in Courbet’s work is, aesthetically speaking, very high. And the high-wire excitement of all those risks being taken ail at once was a part—a big part—of what held us in the Courbet retrospective that was at the Brooklyn Museum earlier this winter.¹ It was exciting to try to figure out how Courbet achieved some of his effects— how he worked the paint to get those textures of water or snow; how he orchestrated his colors to create those mysteriously beautiful flesh tones or those lowering gray-day-at-the-beach skies. And what pulled you deeper and deeper into the work was the extent to which, more times than you would imagine, the gambles panned out, and the crazy