ABSTRACT
During the 1850s and early 1860s, the looming presence of Gustave Courbet on the French art scene served as an unavoidable reference point for Whistler and for other progressive artists of his generation. In a letter written to Henri Fantin-Latour in 1867, Whistler denounced the obvious impact of “Courbet!” upon his early art and proclaimed that Courbet’s “influence was odious!” In the next sentence Whistler issued a pointed retraction, emphatically insisting: “about the influence of his paintings on mine – there was none, and you will not find any in my canvases.” Rather, it was “that damned Realism” that the artist so vehemently rejected, along with its battle cry of “Long Live Nature!” In an apparent retreat from his avant-garde position, Whistler expressed a wish that he “had been a student of Ingres,” arch-Academician and the polar opposite of the “Realist” Courbet. The letter has often been viewed as evidence of Whistler’s irreversible break with Courbet and with Realism. Yet, Whistler’s relationship to Courbet and his art was far more complex, nuanced and ambivalent than his aforementioned statements would suggest. Whistler further explained in the letter that “it’s not poor Courbet whom I find loathsome, any more than his paintings. . . . As always I recognize the qualities they have.”1 Though clearly eager to differentiate his modernism from Courbet’s, Whistler’s comment implies his recognition that elements in Courbet’s art transcend the limitations of stylistic labels.
