Gustave Courbet's Young Ladies from the Village (1852) at the Met

Here's a brief discussion of a seemingly ugly painting by Courbet of three young women distributing alms to a young peasant girl in rural France, exhibited at the salon of 1852. The Daumier print below, The Bourgeois at the Salon, points out the irony of the "high" art at the salon while also poking fun at the well-dressed man who makes a real effort to grapple with it.


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