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Your galleryThe Rock of Hautepierre
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Compare the low roof near the bottom with the huge pale cliff, then follow the alternating bands of rock and vegetation upward.
The rocky formation dominates this view, with a small building providing a contrasting human scale. Courbet gives the cliff weight through large pale planes broken by dark seams and green vegetation. The landscape can be read as an arrangement of solid masses before its smaller details become apparent.
Oil on canvas · 80.2 × 100.3 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Realism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Rock of Hautepierre
- Artist
- Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877)
- Date
- c. 1869
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 80.2 × 100.3 cm (31 1/2 × 39 1/2 in.); Framed: 113.1 × 134 × 11.5 cm (44 1/2 × 52 3/4 × 4 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Emily Crane Chadbourne Fund and Major Acquisitions Centennial Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.







