Appreciation to The Bathers

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Appreciation to The Bathers
In the painting of The Bathers, the painter
Courbet portrayed the characters very clearly,
resulting in the contrast of the elegant overall
unity with the self-contained large background
space. The artist showed the ideal and the spirit
of the realistic paintings here. Two bathers
seemed like dancing together
, echoed with each other. The true value of this
painting was not the multiple meanings, but lied
in its showed simplicity, the unembellished
writing skills and the creative thought in
reality as the starting point. At that time,
the French Salon advocated Ingres's elegant naked
body shaping and the
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mannered lady portraits. For the strong physical
female workers painted by Courbet, people did not
feel the aesthetic beauty. Even some famous
critics or coeval friends commented on this
painting ironically. The writer Merimee compared
this painting with the cannibalized savage in New
Zealand. What is more, some people gathered on
the Courbet exhibition, shouting the slogan
of "Beating Courbet".
Although Courbet was born in the vineyards of a
wealthy family, he showed the sympathy for the
people that were struggling at the bottom of the
society. The noble characters and the grand
historical themes were absolutely not found in
the paintings of Courbet. He was mainly based on
the simple working people. The contemporary
critics thought his paintings were ugly and
vulgar, but Courbet just wanted to through the
painting of The Bathers to show the simple and
strong life scene of the civilians and conveyed
the noble concepts from it.
Artisoo Oil Painting Blog
Reference http//www.artisoo.com/OilPaintingBlog/
appreciation-to-the-bathers/