The Source

Painted in 1862 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this nude at a forest spring represents one of Courbet's most sustained engagements with the academic nude subject reformulated through Realist principles. The 'source' or spring as setting for a nude figure was well established in French painting — Ingres's La Source (1856) had set the academic standard just six years before — but Courbet's version, set in the actual Franche-Comté landscape he knew intimately, grounds the timeless motif in specific geological and botanical observation. The juxtaposition of an idealized (or near-idealized) female figure against the palpably real rock and water of the Doubs region creates the characteristic Courbet tension between convention and material reality.

The cool, damp atmosphere of the forest source required Courbet to shift his typical warm palette toward greens and blue-greys, with the skin of the figure receiving reflected cool light from the water and surrounding foliage. Rock surfaces are built up with the palette knife and show their characteristic geological layering. Water is handled with translucent glazes over a dark ground.