Fish imagery in art 37: Courbet's The Trout

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a Realist painter whose paintings were a rebellion against the Romantic painters who dominated the art of his day. His paintings of common people and common scenes shocked the 19th century French art world. The photograph below of The Trout does not do justice to Courbet’s excellence as a craftsman and a colorist but does reflect his uncompromising realism. The trout is painted as a terrorized victim of fate; it is difficult not to feel the pain of this fish as it struggles against the hook in its mouth. By painting reality in its unglamorous aspects, Courbet instigated the first of many artistic ‘revolutions’ which led to the chaotic modern art scene. The realist tradition he began continues today in such exhibits as that of the photographs of homosexual acts by Robert Mapplethorpe, which are as offensive to our society today as paintings like The Trout were to the society of Courbet’s time.