Le Lac (Les Roches d'Ornans)

In the Autumn of 1866 Courbet returned to his hometown of Ornans and remained there until May of 1867 when he left again for Paris and Saint-Aubin-sur-la-Mer (see lot 233). The environs of Ornans with its numerous racines and dramatic topography had been an inspiration for Courbet from his early works as a student at the Petit Séminaire d'Ornans. In a letter to his patron Alfred Bruyas from January-February 1866 Courbet reveals how he saw the landscape in his work, "...I will send you a splendid landscape of profound solitude, done deep in the valleys of my part of the world" (quoted in P. ten-Doesschate Chu, The Letters of Gustave Courbet, Chicago, 1992, p. 275). In Le Lac (Les Roches d'Ornans) Courbet employs his innovative painterly technique to make the painting both visually and emotionally authentic. With the palette knife he describes the rough texture of the cliffs of the region, creating with them a sense of their monumentality and permanence which emphasizes nature's dominance over man. The landscape of Ornans had its own intrinsic value and did not need human action to create drama. Courbet gives the painting energy through the artful combination of painterly technique, palette and compositional arrangement. The vigourous brushwork, contrasting blue sky and dark shadows, and angular rock formations imposed on gently sloping hillsides all serve to create a monumental image of nature.