206 years ago today, on June 10, 1819 (April 18, 1819 lunar calendar), the French painter Gustave Courbet was born. Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) French painter, representative of realist art. Born on June 10, 1819, in a family of farmers in Ornan, died on December 31, 1877 in La Tour de Pe, Switzerland. He studied law in his early years, and later changed to fine arts. In 1839, he went to Paris. In addition to learning painting from several painters, he mainly devoted his energy to observing social life and studying and copying some famous paintings in art galleries, including Caravaggio, Rivera and other oil paintings. In 1841, his father sent him to university in Paris to study law, but he decided to become a painter, studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Besançon. By the age of 23, he had mastered the main elements of his style. In 1855, his large oil paintings "Ornan's Funeral" and "The Studio" were rejected by the jury of the World's Fair, so he set up a shed near the fair, held an exhibition called "Realism, Courbet's 40 Works", and issued a statement explaining his artistic claims, challenging the outdated themes and rules advocated by conservatives. His works were particularly popular at the World's Fair in Munich in 1869. Due to Courbet's international influence, Napoleon's Third Government decided to award him the Medal of Honor, but he refused. During the Paris Commune in 1871, Courbet was elected as a member of the Commune and president of the Artists' Union, and worked actively. After the failure of the Commune, he was arrested for being accused of being involved in the destruction of Napoleon's Guild Column in the Place Vendome, and was sentenced to half a year in prison and a large fine. Later documents proved that he was not actually involved in this matter. In prison, Courbet drew the tragic events of the failure of the Paris Commune in a small notebook, such as: sketches "Shooting", "In Prison" (both in the Louvre Museum), etc. He died in Switzerland in his later years, and died abroad.