The Cliffs of the Loue, 1872

Around 1850 Gustave Courbet created a stir with controversial paintings of farmers and workers on a format typical of monumental historical works, thereby emphasising his political and social beliefs. In addition to this however he was also a landscape painter, especially in the late 1850s and the 1860s. His preference lay in the Franche-Comté, the region of his birth, where he often painted the River Loue and the cave in which it rises. In The Cliffs of the Loue we see Courbet’s predilection for a nature that is dark and wild. He here used a palette knife to emphasise and evoke the tangibility of the natural elements. He applied the paint in thick, heavy layers. Courbet’s use of dark colours also shows his fondness for Dutch and Spanish painters like Rembrandt and Velazquez.