1864 (ca.), Gustave Courbet, The Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne -- Getty Museum (Los Angeles)
From the museum label: Courbet painted the grotto of Sarrazine, a popular tourist destination in his native region, numerous times in 1864. In this visually dramatic picture, he proposed radical new ideas about composition and technique. The cave fills the vortex-like composition, underscoring the mineral-rich, craggy, and moss-covered surfaces that engulf the viewer. Courbet used brushes and palette knives to create a laboriously constructed surface that evokes the variegated colors and textures of the rock strata. Staggering in its modernity, the painting verges on abstraction.
1864 (ca.), Gustave Courbet, The Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne -- Getty Museum (Los Angeles)
From the museum label: Courbet painted the grotto of Sarrazine, a popular tourist destination in his native region, numerous times in 1864. In this visually dramatic picture, he proposed radical new ideas about composition and technique. The cave fills the vortex-like composition, underscoring the mineral-rich, craggy, and moss-covered surfaces that engulf the viewer. Courbet used brushes and palette knives to create a laboriously constructed surface that evokes the variegated colors and textures of the rock strata. Staggering in its modernity, the painting verges on abstraction.