How does this artwork elucidate its Analysis?
These two young ladies are city dwellers who have come to cool off one summer day at the water's edge. The realism of the scene, of an affirmed sensuality, imposes itself by the frankness of the faces and the attitudes. The modernity of the subject announces the great pictorial fortune of the banks of the Seine, celebrated by the Impressionists, a generation later. This work, singular for its modern subject and its unusual large format for a genre scene, upset the rules of the art of his time. Courbet, willingly provocative, triggered a critical scandal by exhibiting it at the Salon of 1857.According to Jules-Antoine Castagnary, it echoes a previous painting by Courbet, Young Ladies of the Village (1851).
There is a smaller sketch version (96.5 by 130 cm), which is held in the National Gallery, in London, possibly by Courbet or one of his disciples. In addition, there are also various small preparatory canvases representing portraits of both women for the final canvas, in museums like the National Gallery, in Prague, and the National Gallery of Australia, in Canberra.
Young Ladies of the Village National Gallery of Australia National Gallery London Prague Canberra