The Great Bridge
1864
Gustave Courbet, the rebellious leader of the Realism movement, loved painting the rugged, untamed nature of his native France, and this 1864 landscape is a perfect example of his bold style. A lone figure on a donkey casually crosses a sturdy stone bridge, seemingly unbothered by the massive waterfall crashing directly beneath the archway and another cascading down the rocky cliffs in the background. Instead of idealizing nature like the Romantics before him, Courbet captured the raw, heavy power of the water and the dark, moody atmosphere of the gorge with thick, energetic brushstrokes.
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