The Artist's Studio

‘The Artist's Studio’ is described as a painting that is standing on a threshold of modernity. It describes modern problems : social stratification, place of art in a modern society and influence of post-revolutionary order on everyday life. How? Briefly: in the background at left side of the painting we can see a group of ordinary people- one of them is a republican veteran of events from French revolution in 1793. On the right we can see Courbet’s friends who had big influence on his work: Charles Baudelaire and Pierre Joseph Proudhon- radical politician and philosopher. There is no backwall of the studio, Courbet said that “whole world is presenting itself to him to paint it”. We can feel that this painting is both very personal and meant for public viewing because of the important at the time message that it communicates.