The Ordinary as Subject

In the 1840s, Gustave Courbet declared war on idealized art. His The Stone Breakers (1849) showed two laborers smashing rocks on a road — a subject long considered too mundane for serious painting. He painted them life-size, at the monumental scale once reserved for gods, kings, and mythological heroes.

In 1855, Courbet made his stance a manifesto. Rejected from the official Paris exhibition, he built his own Pavilion of Realism nearby and charged admission to see his work. He hung a sign declaring himself a Realist and printed a short statement: his only goal was to translate the customs and ideas of his own time, as he actually saw them.