Woman With a Parrot (Gustave Courbet)

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In 1866, French artist, Gustave Courbet, painted his work, Woman with a Parrot. The painting itself is an oil on canvas style painting that tried to make use of realism as much as possible. When Courbet started painting this work, he had a goal of creating a nude painting of a woman that would be accepted by the Salon Jury. He made the same attempt 2 years ago with a different painting, but it got rejected for its ‘indecency’. This painting, however, passed the Salon. The woman in the paining is lying on her bed in a darkly lit room. Behind her is a curtain, which is painted in a dark green and black color. On the curtain are a variety of designs; most of which appear to be flowers. These are painted in a slightly lighter green color with traces of dark orange. The curtain is slightly open from the middle- left side, revealing trees growing in the background. From above the trees, we can see the whitish- yellow sky, which gives of traces of light; helping to illuminate the room. On the right side of the painting; in front of the woman but behind the curtain, stands a clothing hanger. It has 5 visible branches coming out of it, but all are completely empty. The only thing on the hangar is a small metal bowl which is placed on a stand all the way on the top of the hanger. Despite the hanger being empty, the woman’s clothes are lying of the floor, in front of the mattress. As previously stated, the woman is completely naked on the bed. She does not seem to pay any mind to this, however, and appears to be rather contempt with herself. She makes no attempt to cover herself up with either her hands or the bed sheet. In fact, she is lying over the bed sheet instead of trying to conceal herself in it. Although, it should be noted that a portion of the sheet is wrapped around the top of her right leg, and covers her vagina. Whether she is aware of this or not is

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