Squall on the Horizon

Gustave Courbet intensively created most of his seascapes in a period of nine years from 1865 to 1873. During this period, the painter traveled to the beautiful Normandy coast facing the English Channel to paint the sceneries, like a series of paintings, including calm sea, raging sea, boats on the beach, and the cliffs of Étretat which is known for the peculiar landscape of precipices protruded into the sea. Especially during his stay in Étretat in 1869, he created the most number of the seascapes, of which more than 50 pieces are confirmed even only in his catalogue raisonné.
Courbet lost both the French parliamentary election and the Paris municipal election in 1871. Subsequently, he was put in the prison of Sainte-Pélagie at the time of the Commune de Paris, but underwent surgery due to illness. Until his exile to Switzerland in 1873, Courbet spent some time in his native town Ornans, but his health condition stayed poor. During such a difficult time, an ideal motif in painting for Courbet was the rough stormy sea surging forward with great force that he had seen in Normandy.
According to a friend’s letter to Courbet, it is speculated that this work is a piece from a series of the seascapes that Courbet created between 1872 and 1873, when he stayed in Ornans. A local town near the Swiss border, Ornans had no connections with the sea at all, but the intensive executions of the paintings in Étretat in 1869 might have helped Courbet to recreate seascapes for the subsequent several years. A mass of surge with full of movement was a Courbet’s favorite subject matter. Richly conveying a massive feeling, he depicts the power of nature hidden within the waves using a palette knife. Along with his renowned “deer” series, this “wave” series can be considered as a synonym for Courbet’s painting.