|  | The Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne
Item 3 on 11
European Painting
Painting (Landscape)
Material : Oil on canvas
Date : near 1864
Area related : France
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| Description |  |  |
A popular tourist destination in Courbet's native region of southeastern France, the grotto of Sarrazine held a powerful grip on the artist's imagination. He painted it, and related geological sites, numerous times in 1864. Courbet used the cave, an unusual subject for landscape, to propose radical new ideas about composition and technique. Here the human presence is virtually eliminated, suggested only by the delicate wooding scaffolding that hugs the curved back wall. The cave fills the vortexlike composition, underscoring our close-up view of its mineral-rich, craggy, and moss-covered surfaces that engulf the viewer on all sides. Courbet used brushes and palette knives to create a laborious worked surface, a dense mosaic of colors and textures evoking the rock strata. Staggering in its modernity, the painting verges on abstraction.
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Lettres de Paris : L'Ecole française de peinture à l'Exposition de 1878 
Emile Zola dresse ainsi le bilan de l'école française de peinture au Salon de 1878 qui exposera de nombreux artistes aujourd'hui présents au Musée d'Orsay.
Proudhon et Courbet
Zola publiera, dans Le Salut Public des 26 et 31 août 1865, un article intitulé : Mes Haines, Causeries littéraires et artistiques.
L'oeuvre de Courbet commentée par Emile Zola 
Emile Zola écrira ces lignes au sujet de Gustave Courbet, dans ses Lettres de Paris intitulées L'Ecole française de peinture à l'Exposition de 1878.
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