Stream in the Jura Mountains (The Torrent)

Courbet came out of prison in March 1872. He had served six months over the toppling of the Vendôme Column during the Paris Commune, and the Salon jury refused his submissions that year. So he went back to the Jura, the limestone country on the French side of the Swiss border where he grew up, and painted what still sold, which was streams, waterfalls and trout. In that country the water comes out of the rock itself, from caves in the cliffs, and the fall in the distance here is what feeds the stream in front of it. In July 1873, with the state now demanding he pay for rebuilding the column, he crossed into Switzerland. He died there in 1877, still owing the money.