VIDEO CHANGES SLOWLY AS YOU VIEW. Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a French realist painter, committed to painting only what he could see; he rejected the Romanticism of earlier visual artists. His independence set an example to Impressionists. Courbet was willing to make bold social statements through his work. His early paintings challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers instead of religious or historical subjects. His later works included landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes, and still lifes. (Quoted from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave... , lightly edited for brevity.)