The McMullen Museum at Boston College is currently hosting the exhibition Courbet: Mapping Realism, which features a selection of paintings from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium as well as a number of works from American collections. Together, the paintings express the influence of Gustave Courbet, a French painter and leader of the realist movement, on foreign artists.
Mapping Realism expands upon an exhibition that took place in Brussels earlier this year titled Gustave Courbet and Belgium. Organized by the Royal Museums, the show examined the role Belgium played in shaping Courbet’s work and the enthusiastic response the artist received from Belgian artists and collectors alike. Mapping Realism adds Courbet paintings from American collections to illustrate how his work was received in the United States. A selection of paintings by Courbet’s American contemporaries such as Winslow Homer, William Morris Hunt and Eastman Johnson are also included in the exhibition and reveal the influence Courbet had on American painting.
Courbet: Mapping Realism will be on view at the McMullen Museum through December 8, 2013.
