Gustave Courbet  is perhaps the first artist who foresaw the possibilities of an artistic avant-garde with his boundary breaking paintings of the French working classes.  For Courbet realism in painting had as much to do with his artistic expertise as it did with his socialist views.  ìRealism,î Courbet is quoted as saying,  ìis democracy in art.î  In the eyes of the artist the humble lives of peasants were as deserved of a finely executed painting as a wealthy nobleman paying for a portrait.  Courbet is able to breathe life into a class of people that had never before had the privilege of having lifesize,  matter-of-fact portraits painted of them.  The Stone Breakers, painted in 1849, is Courbet's first fully developed embodiment of the programmatic realism that would become his trademark.

                The Stone Breakers. 1849.

    The genre scene depicted in the painting was supposedly inspired by two road workers who had been meticulously observed by passerby Courbet.  The two workers were asked by the artist to recreate their pose in a more formal studio setting.  Whether or not the two men were real workers or figments of the painter's imagination the image speaks for itself.  The sheer immensity of the grandiose undertaking of such a canvas was in the past reserved for the romantic idealism of lush landscapes and history paintings.   Courbet is able to elevate the humble work and position of the peasant classes without overt pathos and sentiment.  The two men are given dignity and empowerment simply by their solid, lifesize depiction.   They do not confront the viewer face on, but rather are working with their backs to us in concentrated indifference.  The differences in the men's ages is also significant: one is too old for heavy labor and one is far too young. The socialist PJ Proudhon, one of Courbet's contemporaries,  compared them to a parable from the Gospels.1
    Another realist standard found in the painting is its depiction of a momentary scene that doesn't have a set start or finish.  Courbet was able to see the the importance and beauty of giving the manual labor of two peasants the gift of eternity in a painting.
 

    Six years after The Stone Breakers Courbet once again set a new standard for the art world with his crowning visionary masterpiece Studio of a Painter: A Real Allegory.2   Courbet was rejected from the Paris Exposition of 1855 which featured woks by more conventional artists such as Ingres and Delacroix.  Instead of wallowing in rejection, Courbet took the initiative to stage his own private exposition in large wooden shed.  Among  other works, he unveiled Studiofor the first time to much fanfare.  (It is seen below in its entirety. )

Studio of a Painter:  A Real Allegory Summarizing My Seven Years of Life as an Artist.

            1854-55. Oil on canvas.
 

    The painting is ìavant-gardeî in the sense that it combines the politically  progressive with the socially progressive.  Courbet is depicting the emotional and spiritual state of the artist when making art.  He is flanked one one side by his vanguard contemporaries and past philosophers and literati that have helped to shape the modern world.  Baudelaire is seen on the far left with a book.   On Courbet's  other side is a motley collective of the French working classes that  inspired his loving, realist portraits.  The focus is on the artist: he is the pivotal center of the painting and is illuminated to stand out against the shadowed crowds on either side of him.  Standing next to Courbet are two figures who watch him intently as he paints a landscape.  The artist's inner world represented by the two figures, a nude model and a small child, who is perhaps Courbet as a young boy.  The role of the nude has been widely debated in the annals of art history.  It has been suggested that she represents Nature or Truth, two guiding principles in the artist's work.
    Studio resembles the Beatle's masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band in its vivid depiction of past and present cultural giants flanking the artists (Beatles) and representing their diverse influences. The musical  contemporaries of the Beatlesí such as Bob Dylan are akin to Courbet and his depiction of Baudelaire.  From this circus of luminaries appears the multi-faceted artist as an individual.  At once rejecting the Establishment and creating a new Establishment both works of art succeed in defining the era they were created in.
    The concept  of the artist as a genius misunderstood and rejected from petty, bourgeoisie society was thoroughly adopted by Courbet and his followers.  In reality Courbet never suffered alienation from his class or internal conflicts concerning his background and the privileges it did not bring.  It was his artistic contemporaries, Manet and Baudelaire, who truly experienced isolation and alienation as members of the bourgeoisie.

Baudelaire  by Courbet
 
 

1 H.W. Janson, History of Art. p.489

2  In Janson the painting is referred to as Interior of MyStudio, a Real Allegory Summarizing Up Seven Years of My life as an Artist.