The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth-Century Media Culture

In this insightful book, Chu (who edited and translated Gustave Courbet's letters) examines how the painter (1819–1877) used the press to market his work. Courbet, who once called himself "the proudest and most arrogant man in France," relished any kind of publicity and courted journalists, critics and editors who reviewed his work and published letters in which he explained his paintings and expounded his antiestablishment philosophy. He claimed that art could not be taught and that it should not be controlled by the state, and his paintings often attacked such institutions as the church and the academy. Analyzing many of these paintings, Chu shows how their subtly subversive content caused public debate while eluding the censors. Courbet's proudest moment came in 1870, when he refused a knighthood cross in the French Legion of Honor and published a letter saying that the state was "incompetent in matters of art." But facing punishment for participating in the riots of 1871, he fled to Switzerland and died there several years later. Chu's brilliant study of Courbet's paintings and marketing strategies sheds much light on his work and the artistic milieu of the 19th century. B&w and color illus. (May)