Courbet's The Stone Breakers - Alive and Well in Winterthur

The Advanced Placement course in Art History is unique in that it is based on an in-depth knowledge of 250 pieces of art from all around the world. Teachers of this course know that two of the 250 works no longer exist. The Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan were infamously destroyed by the Taliban. But the art history textbooks tell us that Gustave Courbet's oil painting The Stone Breakers from 1849, (number 113 in the list of 250) was destroyed and is, consequently, only known from photographs. Fred Kleiner's, Gardner's Art through the Ages, one of the most popular art history textbooks in the world, provides a picture of the work and, in the caption, writes: "Formerly Gemaldegalerie, Dresden (destroyed in 1945)." Alas, the work was a victim of the British incendiary bombing of Dresden on the night of February 13th 1945, a bombing raid immortalized in literature in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughter House Five. It is thus very sad that we can only ever know this work second-hand, so to speak, from photographs like this one:

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, Oil on canvas, 1849

But hang on a second. Imagine the surprise of an AP Art History teacher or student who visits the marvelous Oscar Reinhart collection, housed in the small museum 'Am Romerholz' in Winterthur, Switzerland, and encounters the following painting:

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, Oil on canvas, c. 1849

More than likely, they won't believe their eyes. Especially when they read the identifying label, which states: "Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers. Oil on canvas, c. 1849.". What's going on? Has the work risen from the grave or, phoenix-like, from the ashes? Or have the wily Swiss secreted the work away all along, (like they have done with great deal of the world's stolen art!). Of course if the surprised connoisseur of 19th century French Realism happens to have a photographic memory, or happens to have a photograph of number 113 in her pocket, or (more likely) has an iPhone and does an internet search and locates an image of the destroyed work, she will see that the two images are not identical.

Firstly, the painting in Winterthur is darker in colour and the jacket of the old man kneeling down is not red and there is no flash of sky blue in the upper right corner. The attentive viewer will notice that above the men's heads in the work in Winterthur, is a lot of negative space. In the destroyed version, the men are more monumental, the standing youth's head reaches almost to the top of the canvas. The basket to the left of the young man has disappeared in the Swiss version. The wall that the men seem to breaking down is lower in the Winterthur painting than in the Dresden painting and the men's feet are closer to each other. Another difference, but impossible to see, is that the destroyed version was bigger by far, but we don't notice this because we only know it from small photographs.

But, of course there is one other, very obvious difference - they are reversed images of each other. Could it be that every text book has gotten it wrong and the photographs in books reversed the negative, providing us with a mirror image of the real work? It wouldn't be the first time this has happened? But no. If you look carefully you will see that Courbet signed the Dresden painting in the bottom left corner, and his signature reads the right way around. Most mysteriously, in the Winterthur painting he has signed it in the bottom right hand corner.

So why two versions of this painting, with the exception of some minor details, almost identical except for size and reversal? It is that latter contrast that is the real mystery. The fact is, no one knows. Perhaps the smaller painting was a sketch - but why the reversal? In the annotated catalogue of the Oscar Reinhart Am Romerholz collection we find the following suggestion: "The smaller picture, less highly finished and showing the scene in reverse, is perhaps later in date and may have been painted as the basis of a print, which would explain why it reproduces the motif as a mirror-image". Perhaps. I suppose it is a good explanation. Only problem is, I don't know of any 19th century print of this work. Such a piece of material evidence would certainly be needed to satisfy that explanation.

So, it remains a bit of a mystery as to why Courbet painted this scene twice, one big version and one smaller. But for me personally, the bigger mystery is why does the art history world ignore the version in Winterthur? Could it be that the authors of the textbooks, like Fred Kleiner, are unaware of its existence? The Khan Academy has helpfully and generously produced a series of posts that provide background on every one of the 250 in the AP Art History course. But they seem to be unaware that a second version of this work is still in existence. Don't take my word for it, you can access their post here.

The oil painting The Stone Breakers in Dresden must have been an overwhelming, monumental work. Alas, it was destroyed. But it is not the case that we must make do with only small, paper reproductions in our textbooks. Teachers and students of art history should be aware that a very real oil painting of The Stone Breakers by Gustave Courbet is alive and well and living in the Oscar Reinhart Collection 'Am Romerholz' in Winterthur, Switzerland. I saw it there myself just yesterday.

Roman Portraiture

Some, with slight exaggeration, claim that we live in the century of the selfie (though who can assume that the selfie will last the century?) This selfie, of three world leaders, made the news a short while ago (do you remember who the female is?) 

Maybe not such a polite thing for our trusted leaders to be doing, considering that they were attending a memorial service, but hey, if you had attended the Nelson Mandela memorial service, wouldn't you have taken a selfie too? (I seem to have gotten into a bad habit of ending each sentence with a question, so I'm going to stop that now.)

So, what is this obsession that we have with our own faces? (Oh, there I go again!) We can certainly trace it back to the Renaissance, with the birth of the modern portrait, when even the artists like Michelangelo and Botticelli start slipping their own faces into their paintings. By the time we reach Rembrandt the self-portrait has come well and truly into its own.

But the history of the selfie goes back much longer than this, to a tradition in the Roman Republic, when a citizen could celebrate their position in society by means of sculpted portraiture. The old patricians of Rome, when burying their dead, had the habit of organizing a funerary parade in which they would carry the wax busts of their ancestors. It was a way of proving and displaying their long, proud lineage. So the portrait was of great importance and every upper class Roman family would keep a collection of marble likenesses of their male ancestors in a cupboard at home, much like we keep family photo albums. (Sorry for another question, but do people still keep family albums or is that unspeakably previous century?)

The funny thing about portraits from the ancient Roman Republic, is that they didn't attempt to beautify their subjects. They didn't even try to hide their age, as we do in our culture that worships youth. On the contrary, Roman Republican portraiture magnified the aging process if anything. Images of the great and powerful would be displayed on pedestals in public places, examples for all to emulate. Take this Head of a Roman Patrician from around 75 BCE for instance.

The subject is certainly no spring chicken. So, would he have been pleased to see himself being depicted like this, wrinkles and all. The fact is, he would have been delighted. For the truth of the matter is, hyper-realistic portraits, like this one, embodied the ideal of the hard working, serious upper-class citizen. This man might have been privileged and well off, but, his portrait tells us, he has worked his socks off for the good of his family and, equally important, for the welfare of the state. No partying or super yacht cruises for him. Instead, he would have us believe, he has dedicated his life to the high-minded fulfilling of his civic duty. In other words, the portrait reflects two characteristics that were greatly valued by the Romans of this time - seriousness or gravitas and virtue. He wears his wrinkles proudly and each one bespeaks his gravitas and virtue. A bit like the serfs of the corporate world today who complain of how hard they work and who wear their stress as a banner of pride.

Inge Lyse Hanson of John Cabot University in Rome has argued (in a lecture that I attended in July 2015) that these Roman Republic portraits must be seen as being in opposition to the Greek values of the Hellenistic world where, for instance, Alexander the Great was portrayed as a youth. Greek sculpture depicted leaders as being young, smooth-skinned, turned to the side with their gaze to the distance; Roman patrician sculpture, on the other hand, showed their leaders to be old, wrinkled, looking straight ahead and staring at the viewer. Furthermore, she insists that these busts were earned, that each statue represents an award set up in a public space by the grateful citizenry.

Art historians refer to this style as Verism. Which might, verily, give you the impression that these portraits reflect reality. But that is not the case. This is art, after all, not reality. These are idealized images, representations of ideas Today we photoshop or airbrush out our blemishes and wrinkles, but in those days they added them in. The times have changed. But they already changed soon after the collapse of the Roman republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Take a look at this image, from the Vatican Museum, for instance, from the 1st century CE. The blemishes and wrinkles are gone.

Or even better, look at this portrait of Emperor Augustus, from Primaporta, now in the Vatican Museum. Every town in the empire had its official portraits of the emperor, but unlike the veristic portraits of the Republic, the image was one of idealized youth. Augustus would rule for decades to come, but in his portraits he never grew older. He had, literally, invented a new never changing time to go with his new office of Emperor, a time in which he never ages in any portraits, just like the queen of England never ages in any British postage stamps.

Instead, his carefully cultivated public image remained that of the Greek ideal, clearly based on the famous classical statue, Doryphoros by Polykeitos:

At Augustus' feet we find a small cupid, riding a dolphin. The presence of cupid indicates that Augustus is a God, hence his perfect looks and eternal youth.

One obvious difference between Augustus of Primaporta and Doryphoros is (you've probably noticed) Doryphoros is nude, while Augustus is wearing body armour. In fact there are portraits of Augustus that are semi-nude or entirely nude, after all, when you have the perfect, idealized, youthful body, why not show it off?  It is just that in this particular incarnation the Emperor is portrayed as the warrior who has defeated his enemies Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, thereby ensuring the safety and security of all the citizens. In fact his cuirlass or breastplate depict a diplomatic victory that he achieved over the Parthians.

 So, in short, portraits always project an image. Sometimes, as in these Roman portraits, the image that is being projected could be labeled as propaganda. What of our own leaders today? They certainly don't have themselves depicted in the nude, nor do they openly confess to being divine.But would they dare to partake in the sort of role play that the ancient Romans did, dressing up as warriors and so on? Surely we are far too sophisticated to be taken in by democratic leaders who don battle gear. Like this one for instance, who dresses as a warrior and, like Augustus, stretches his arm out towards his troops, a contemporary Primaporta image.

Or let us not forget the following warrior leader, who, though having never set foot on a battlefield, still sported a military codpiece. What are these guys trying to prove?