Web Letters: Daring Intransigence

By Barry Schwabsky

This article appeared in the March 24, 2008 edition of The Nation.

March 6, 2008

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  • Thanks to the museum without walls, the Internet, I was able to view the pictures noted in this article, which I found to be entertaining and inspiring. The public reaction to a painting of a funeral, Un enterrement à Ornans, to which Monsieur Schwabsky relates the dimensions of shock it created, the mere lack of seriousness it conveyed to minds convinced of a superior vision, seems naïve today. He was a pioneer in representing the commonplace. Les Demoiselles des bords de la Seine, he says, are two hookers cooling off. Maybe he knows more than I do, but these ladies are no more alluring than any antebellum maidens in Mobile. But I have to say that I admire his interest and read his survey of Courbet with something like awe.

    Jim Willingham

    St. Petersburg, FL

    03/18/2008 @ 07:18am


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