Der Strand von Palavas

In 1854 Courbet was in the south, at Montpellier, staying with Alfred Bruyas, a wealthy collector who had agreed to bankroll the painter's independence from the official Salon. It seems to have been Courbet's first real sight of the Mediterranean. He painted this small canvas of it, mostly sky and water, with a single tiny figure down on the shore lifting his hat toward the sea. People have long read that figure as Courbet himself, saluting the open water. A year later he would put up his own pavilion in Paris and label it Realism, shown outside the official exhibition. Little white flecks of paint carry the light across the low waves, which barely seem to stir.