Les Dents du Midi

Toward the end of his life, Gustave Courbet found himself far from France, living in exile in Switzerland after being held responsible for pulling down a Paris monument during the Commune. Unable to pay the enormous fine demanded of him, he settled near the Dents du Midi, the jagged Alpine peaks he painted here in 1877. The scene shows the plain surroundings of his daily life: a rocky, uneven meadow sloping down to a dark lake, with the mountains rising behind under a thick, gray sky. A few animals dot the grass, painted simply and without ceremony.

As a founder of the Realist movement, Courbet had little interest in making nature look grand or dreamlike. He preferred to show things as they actually were, and that plainspoken approach is everywhere in this canvas, from the coarse texture of the stones to the muted, heavy colors. The mood is undeniably somber, and it is hard not to read some of the painter's own situation into it. This is not one of his standout pictures, but it does offer an honest glimpse of a man gazing out at the land that had become his home away from home, with no clear way back.