Gustave Courbet, who was born in Franche-Comté, came to the French capital to destroy the old art and create a new tradition. He started with romantic paintings but soon addressed new subjects and characters. Champfleury’s metaphor of broken doors of the Salon perfectly conveys Courbet’s determination, the innovative nature of his art, and the explosive effect that his paintings had. The unusual choice of modern subjects, the austere simplicity of characters, and the large canvases that had been typical of historical paintings made “After Dinner at Ornans”, “Stone-Breakers”, and “A Burial At Ornans” too daring for official critics.

Courbet followed the principle of his republican grandfather:

In his art, Courbet consistently stood by the realistic method.

Talking about himself as a realist, Courbet often said that he would agree to paint an angel only if he saw one. His landscapes were also a breakthrough. The painting “The Sea” (1876) is a copy of one of the sea landscapes painted by Courbet in the 1850s, when he visited his friend and philanthropist Alfred Bruyas in the south of France. He applied wide, thick, and saturated brush strokes and masterfully conveyed light and deep shadows, giving all the details a definite material nature, including the stones on the shore, waves, and clouds. Dark tones prevail in his palette. Courbet used painting methods to create the image of majestic and monumental natural elements. In 1882 the painting was exhibited at the École des Beaux-Arts with the title “View of the Mediterranean Sea. Maguelonne near Montpellier”.