Gustave Courbet

(Newser) - A French historian says he has inadvertently solved an enduring mystery in the world of art—the identity of Gustave Courbet's nude model in his 1866 painting The Origin of the World. For those unfamiliar, a headline at the Local notes that the painting features "art's most...

(Newser) - Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World hangs in Paris' renowned Musee d'Orsay—but good luck posting it on Facebook. A French man made the painting, which features a woman's, ahem, lower half, his profile picture—and found his profile deleted. He is now suing the social networking site, the...

(Newser) - Parlaying scandal into success may seem a terribly modern ploy, but Gustave Courbet, the subject of a new retrospective at New York's Metropolitan Museum, mastered the art 150 years ago. Courbet, the realist painter and father of modern art, painted both gorgeous, subtle scenes and uglier, intentionally awkward tableaux. They...

(Newser) - Authorities in France and Israel are attempting to return paintings seized by Nazis during World War II to families to whom they belong, and have organized an exhibit of 50 “orphaned” works in Israel to solicit rightful claims. The tranquil themes of many of the works in the exhibit,...