The artwork titled “Hollyhocks in a Copper Bowl” is a creation of the renowned artist Gustave Courbet, dating back to the year 1872. Fabricated using oil on canvas, this piece belongs to the Realism movement, a genre that seeks to represent subjects truthfully without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic, and supernatural elements. The artwork features the dimensions of 60 by 49 centimeters and falls under the genre of flower painting, which focuses on the natural beauty of floral arrangements.
In this artwork, Courbet depicts a vigorous display of hollyhocks arranged in a copper bowl that adds a contrasting texture and color to the vibrant flora. The flowers, spanning a spectrum from white to deep red hues, are rendered with a sense of immediacy and strong brushstrokes characteristic of Realism. The dark background accentuates the organic shapes and colors of the hollyhocks, allowing them to draw the viewer’s focus. One can appreciate the attention paid to the natural details of the flowers while simultaneously acknowledging the rough aesthetic presented by the bowl’s reflective surface and the overall spontaneous, unstructured arrangement. This interaction of colors, textures, and light not only showcases Courbet’s mastery of the medium but also captures the Realist movement’s dedication to depicting ordinary beauty with frankness and emotional depth.
