Why it matters
Courbet called it 'a real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life': he paints a landscape at the centre, with ordinary people on the left and his friends and supporters, including Baudelaire, on the right. Rejected by the 1855 World Fair, it went into his own Pavilion of Realism instead.
Did you know?
- Courbet said: 'The world comes to be painted at my studio.'
- The nude model behind him symbolises academic art.
- Delacroix was one of the few painters who supported it.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Painter's Studio (CC BY-SA 4.0).
