The Rock of Hautepierre c. 1869

Gustave Courbet made this landscape painting, *The Rock of Hautepierre*, during his time in mid-nineteenth century France. Courbet was at the forefront of a shift away from academic painting styles, popular within the French art institutions of the time, towards more representational and ‘realist’ styles. Courbet’s approach here is interesting for what it includes and excludes. The sheer rock face dominates, with a small, humble house at its base, set against a distant landscape. This is a painting about place. Yet, the location is less important than the scene itself. The painting is not about one specific location or moment. Instead, it creates a social space where the viewer may consider their own relationship to the land and the social structures that depend upon it. As art historians, our role is to look beyond the formal qualities and to consider the social and institutional contexts that shaped the production and reception of the art. Archival sources such as letters, exhibition reviews, and institutional records can help us better understand the place of Courbet’s landscapes in nineteenth-century French culture.