Written and narrated by EDWIN MULLINS
Gustave Courbet was a revolutionary in politics and in art. As an artist he saw himself as a 'realist ' and a ' socialist' and he fought the French artistic establishment all his life. His paintings were thought so scandalous that Napoleon III attacked one of them with a riding crop.
In 1871 he threw himself into the revolutionary Commune and when the government re-established control he was held personally responsible for blowing up the column in the Place Vendome and driven into exile. Now he is seen as one of the fathers of modern painting and his great pictures. bought by the French State, hang in places of honour in the Louvre. Voice of Courbet: Brian Blessed
Executive producer BARRIE GAVIN
Producer CHRISTOPHER MARTIN (Repeat