Self-Portrait with Upraised Arm
ca. 1840
Long before Gustave Courbet shocked the Paris art world as the father of Realism, he was just a 21-year-old student practicing his dramatic poses. In this self-portrait from around 1840, a shirtless young man wearing a wide-brimmed hat reaches eagerly toward the sky, pointing upward as if declaring his future artistic dominance. The soft, smudged shading shows a young artist intensely studying his own anatomy and light. It’s a humble but ambitious sketch that hints at the confidence of the man who would soon become famous for painting ordinary people and causing massive scandals at the Paris Salon.
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