The Stone Breakers

Courbet painted The Stone Breakers in 1849, after encountering two men breaking stones on a road near his hometown of Ornans in eastern France. He was thirty, living in Paris, and about to become the most controversial painter of his generation. The Stone Breakers was one of three large canvases he exhibited at the Salon of 1850, along with The Burial at Ornans and After Dinner at Ornans, that established Realism as a movement. Two figures labor on a hillside, breaking stones for a road. One is old, one is young. The old man kneels at the left, swinging a hammer. The young man carries a basket of stones on his back. Both are shown from behind, their faces hidden. They wear patched clothing and wooden clogs. The hillside is rough and stony, with a few trees visible at the top. The sky is flat and grey, offering no relief from the labor below. Courbet painted the figures life-size, which was unprecedented for a subject of this kind. Before Courbet, peasants and laborers had appeared in paintings only as background figures or comic characters. Courbet painted them as the main subject, at the same scale and with the same seriousness that academic painters reserved for mythological or historical scenes. The figures are not idealized. Their clothing is patched, their postures are bent, their labor is relentless. The original version of The Stone Breakers was in the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, where it was destroyed during the Allied bombing of February 1945. A smaller version, sometimes called a replica or a study, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met's version is about half the size of the original, but it preserves the composition and the palette. Courbet was born in Ornans in 1819 and moved to Paris in 1839. He was largely self-taught, and he rejected the academic tradition of idealized historical painting. His work at the Salon of 1850 provoked outrage and admiration in equal measure. Critics called him a danger to society. Younger painters, including Manet and the future Impressionists, saw him as a hero. Oil on canvas, 165 by 257 centimeters for the original, roughly 65 by 101 inches. The Met's version is smaller. Courbet used a dark palette, building the hillside in layers of brown and grey. The figures are painted in broad strokes, their clothing described with thick, textured paint. The sky is a flat grey, built in thin layers. This print works in a study or office, where the serious subject and the dark palette suit the mood. The browns and greys pair with wood furniture, metal fixtures, and neutral walls. The 18x24 size gives the figures and the hillside enough room to read. The painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.