1869 (ca.), Gustave Courbet, The Wave -- Legion of Honor (San Francisco)
From the museum label: The Wave is one of a group of striking marine paintings that Courbet produced in Etretat, in northwestern France, beginning in 1869. This work presents a more dramatic scene than his earlier views of the sea—which featured flat expanses of shoreline, water, and sky—and concentrates on a single breaking wave. The image of a lone wave seen up close may allude to similar motifs in the woodblock prints of Japanese artists Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849), which were widely distributed in the nineteenth century.
1869 (ca.), Gustave Courbet, The Wave -- Legion of Honor (San Francisco)
From the museum label: The Wave is one of a group of striking marine paintings that Courbet produced in Etretat, in northwestern France, beginning in 1869. This work presents a more dramatic scene than his earlier views of the sea—which featured flat expanses of shoreline, water, and sky—and concentrates on a single breaking wave. The image of a lone wave seen up close may allude to similar motifs in the woodblock prints of Japanese artists Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849), which were widely distributed in the nineteenth century.