Ornans (France) (AFP)

Bound by the rejection of academicism, Gustave Courbet and Pablo Picasso revolutionized their time.

The exhibition "Courbet-Picasso, revolutions!", Which opened Thursday at the Courbet Museum in Ornans, the hometown of the cantor of realism, explores for the first time their little-known dialogue.

The exhibition scheduled until October 18 in a recently renovated museum begins with the intense face to face large format photographs of the two painters, their self-portraits and paintings such as "Homme à la clarinet" by Picasso or "La Truite" "by Courbet.

It presents around sixty works by the two masters, on loan from fifteen establishments including the Musée d'Orsay, the Petit-Palais and the Orangerie in Paris, the Picasso museums in Paris and Barcelona (Spain), and the Kunstmuseum in Basel. (Switzerland) and the Museo nacional Tyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

"This is the first time that Courbet and Picasso are compared," says the curator of the exhibition, Thierry Savatier.

"We have never compared the two, not even from a scientific point of view, in books, when there was really material to analyze the influences and the companionship between the two artists", analyzes the historian of art.

Their style is very different.

One, Gustave Coubet (1819-1877), is the champion of realism.

The other, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), is the founder of cubism.

- "Masterful reinterpretation" -

But they have in common to have "revolutionized both painting, art, but also the entire French and international artistic scene, each in their own century", notes the director of the Courbet d'Ornans museum, Benjamin Foudral.

Picasso himself evokes the artistic turn initiated by Courbet: "One day, a man came who affirmed: + I do not want to paint angels, because I have never seen them. + It was Courbet. He preferred to represent two young girls stretched out on the banks of the Seine. (...) Courbet has turned a page and launched painting towards this new direction which she followed for years ".

The presentation of the original canvas thus evoked by the Spanish painter, "Les Demoiselles des edges de la Seine" by Courbet, and the "rewriting" that he made of it is the culmination of the exhibition which gives to see the little-known influence of Courbet on Picasso.

# photo1

"Picasso discovered Courbet at a very young age when he arrived in Paris in 1900. He was to be one of the great masters of the twentieth century to watch Courbet a lot, throughout his career," says Mr. Foudral.

The Catalan will then have a Courbet in his personal collection, the "Tête de chamois", which recalls the Picassian horn bestiary, then will evolve "until this masterful reinterpretation of Les Demoiselles des edges de la Seine, which initiates all his work in Picasso. of variation according to the old masters ", details the director of the museum.

- Picasso, "a realistic painter" -

The highlighting of the female nude, approached in Ornans through several works, such as "Reclining naked woman" by Courbet or "" Minotaur caressing the muzzle of the hand of a sleeper "by Picasso, thus stands out as a vector of their aesthetic revolutions.

"Beyond this initial beauty represented by academicism, they represent the woman as she is", explains Thierry Savatier, evoking the "obsession" of Picasso at the end of his life for the famous painting "L ' Origin of the World ".

According to the art historian, Picasso is also "a realistic painter".

"When Picasso says: + To be successful, a leek still life must smell like leek, to be successful a female nude must feel under the arms +, it shows his desire to be a realistic painter, even if his reality does not correspond necessarily to the common design, "he says.

# photo2

The exhibition also focuses on the political and social commitment of the two painters.

Throughout his career Courbet will represent the poverty of the most disadvantaged and Picasso will also do so during his "blue period".

"L'Eboueur", a little-known work by Picasso, and "La Bohémienne et ses enfans" (1853-1854) by Courbet, exceptionally on loan from a private collector in Hong Kong, thus bear witness to their work.

© 2021 AFP