Gustave Courbet makes his entrance into the art-world on the occasion of the Salon of 1849 and does not go unnoticed : his painting Une après-dînée à Ornans (After dinner in Ornans) receives attention and the artist is even awarded a prize. However this idyll between Courbet and the administration of the beaux arts will be short-lived. Under the Second Empire he will be considered, republican that he is, as an adversary and his work will provoke the most resounding of scandals. His involvement in the Paris Commune represents the ultimate expression of his political and social ideas. The force and genius of Courbet lie in his modernity and his tendency to overturn the values and codes ruling the world of art in the midnineteenth century.

Strong social ideas and a new aesthetic concept are the two axes which guided us in defining the theme of the museographic display. They form the underlying structure and the singularity of Courbet's work.

We would like this museography to tell a story, that of Courbet and of his art and for the visitor to come to Ornans to discover them.

This catalogue takes on its full meaning in the context of the cultural project headed by the General Council of the Doubs, Pays de Courbet, Pays d'artiste (Land of Courbet, Land of an artist) which presents in a rich juxtaposition those places which were the haunts of Courbet and those he painted.