Wow, I mean...just wow. This piece is in a way one of the greatest examples of Gustaves rebellion and defiance in the face of the bitter art world. The subject matter is nothing to be impressed with, nude forms were among the first things to be represented in art, but the method of which he attacked this piece is ground breaking. Unlike the thousands of odalisques and formulatic reclining nudes we saw by the handful earlier in the semester(and even Courbet himself painted quite a few, most specificly the Femme nue couch'ee), we are presented with instead a rather in your face depiction of female genitalia. The picture is cropped so that the face, hands, and all but the most essential segments of the leg were left so that the viewer has nothing to look at except the exposed torso. Despite this however the picture is able to avoid any erotic conotation. The painting was completed in 1866, and although it was banned from public veiwing it is an exemplory example of Gustaves ability to recognize and glorify what has been ignored or avoided by anyone else.
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