The Wrestlers

Artist Gustave Courbet Ornans, 1819 – La Tour-de-Peilz, 1877 Culture French Date 1853 Object type painting Medium, technique oil on canvas Dimensions 252 x 198 cm Inventory number 502.B Collection Department of Art after 1800 On view Hungarian National Gallery, First Floor, From Courbet to Baselitz. Collection of International Art after 1800 Gustave Courbet’s embattled commitment to his artistic ideals and political opinions was central to his life. The great master of realist painting places this same struggle at the core of The Wrestlers. The setting is the racecourse behind the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In the foreground, two athletes are wrestling, although the figures convey a sense of motionlessness and rigidity. Rather than movement, Courbet emphasises the anatomical details of the powerful yet contorted bodies, highlighting the strained muscles and bulging veins. The distinguished spectators occupy the stand behind them – strikingly, the contest is oriented towards the viewer of the painting rather than the distant, indistinct audience. Genthon, István, Modern francia festmények: Szépművészeti Múzeum Budapest, Remekművek magyarországi gyűjteményekből/Meisterwerke aus ungarischen Sammlungen/Art treasures in Hungarian collections/Chefs d’oeuvre dans les collections hongroises, Corvina, Budapest, 1972, p. 12-14. Illyés, Mária, Verő, Mária (ed.), XIX. századi francia művek, A Szépművészeti Múzeum gyűjteményei/The Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest 4, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2001, p. 27-29.