GUSTAVE COURBET (1819-1877),
Roche de Haute-Pierre (881m- 2,890 ft)
France (Jura)
In Roches de Mouthier, ol on canvas, 1863, Phillips Collection, Washington D. C
The hill
La Roche de Haute-Pierre (881m) (The rock of Haute-Pierre) is not located in the valley mais la dominates it at the height of the village of Lods and offers one of the most beautiful points of view on the Loue and its meanders.Named formerly Rock of the Sun, because it is the one that "the star of the day, while climbing on our horizon, favors the first of its nascent rays and that it salutes of its last goodbyes and while it moves away, it is by means of it, that by means of the pale or red tint of which it colors it, it predicts to the inhabitants for the morrow, or the serenity or the tears of the sky."
The painting by Courbet reproduce perfectly that light effect on the hill.
At the summit one can discover a royal point of view on the Loue valley, the Jura mountains and the Mont Blanc.
After 10 minutes of a climb on a compact dirt path, we see the cross, planted at the top of the rock. The brown and crumbly earth suddenly gives way to limestone. Just a few meters and the gentle slope stops abruptly, changes inclination and turns into a cliff. The Loue flows 300 m below. The village of Mouthier-Haute-Pierre is on your left. Lods is located further downstream. In summer, one can see the canoes on the river and the trout fishermen on its shores. In winter, we simply let ourselves be taken by the quality of the landscape. This is one of the most beautiful views on the Loue Valley.
The Painter
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.
Courbet painted a few mountains in his life : the Juras mountains around Ornans ( France) and a few mountains in Switzerland during his exil; Like many painters of the 19th Century, Courbet didn't name the mountain he painted; he liked to give a description of the general atmosphere rather than a precise geographical location.
"I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."