Completed in 1850, A Burial at Ornans made Gustave Courbet an enemy of the French art establishment. Now, the life-sized masterwork is undergoing restoration work at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
“This painting is a manifesto of the Realist movement,” said the museum in a statement. “The aim of the restoration is to restore the painting to as close to its original state as possible, and to ensure its preservation for future generations.”
The History and Controversy of A Burial at Ornans
Measuring 10 feet in height and nearly 20 feet across, A Burial at Ornans by Gustave Courbet is one of the Musée d’Orsay’s largest and most fascinating paintings. Courbet was an ambitious leader of the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. When he was just 30 years old, he painted the life-sized, modern-day funeral procession in his native village of Ornans.
The work’s massive elongated scale, dark muted tones, and unidealized portrayal of ordinary people dramatically challenged the conventions of the time. Only historical, biblical, and mythological subjects appeared on such large canvases, and French audiences favored art that affirmed their morals and aesthetic tastes. A Burial at Ornans, on the other hand, is shockingly straightforward. The freshly-dug grave even looms directly at the viewer’s eye level.
Courbet exhibited A Burial at Ornans at the 1850-51 Salon in Paris. There, the painting was panned for its audaciously large-scale treatment of “vulgar” subject matter and its “ignoble” impasto brushwork. Courbet was not swayed by the criticism, as he had intended A Burial at Ornans to be “a burial of Romanticism,” which had long been the French art establishment’s dominant style. Indeed, this radically Realist painting signalled the start of a shift towards modernity—not just in Courbet’s career, but in art history as a whole.
Restoration Begins on Gustave Courbet Masterpiece
Gustave Courbet’s A Burial at Ornans has belonged to the Musée d’Orsay since the museum opened in the late 1980s. There, it typically appears alongside other works by the artist, including The Origin of the World, the flagrantly forthright female nude that still manages to shock viewers today. For the next year, A Burial at Ornans will sit behind a wall of plexiglass as it undergoes restoration work. The process will take place in full view of the visiting public.
Art restoration specialists aim to “restore the original color harmony of this masterpiece as far as can be achieved,” explained the Museé d’Orsay in a statement. For the past 50 years, A Burial at Ornans has remained largely untouched. According to the museum, its current condition is “compromising the interpretation of the work.”
The restoration of A Burial at Ornans will begin with the removal of grime and deteriorated layers of varnish from the surface of the painting, which are obscuring Courbet’s original colors and contrasts. The canvas also bears several tiny cracks and rips because Courbet’s thick impasto brushstrokes were too heavy for the coarse, loosely woven fabric of the canvas. Additionally, because the work was transported several times after its creation, border portions of the canvas were folded over in the late 19th century. Specialists plan to study and reveal these long-hidden edges and reframe the canvas.
