Bonjour Monsieur Courbet

Gustave Courbet, The Meeting (Bonjour Monsieur Courbet), 1854, oil on canvas

“Bonjour Monsieur Courbet”, says Alfred Bruyas when he meets his friend, Gustave Courbet, walking through the countryside with his painter’s equipment on his backpack. Accompanied by Calas, his employee, and a dog, Bruyas removes his hat to respectfully greet him and, with such gesture, shocks the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie. This is Courbet’s Realism, which in 1855 contributed to the origin of the movement that marked a revolution in art.