Fried and the Beholder

Michael Fried provides several theories on Courbet’s Burial at Ornans that differ from earlier discourses. I enjoyed Fried’s writing style because he told us what he was going discuss and how he was going to get there. He even warned us when he was straying away from his point and then let us know when he was back on course. Fried does a nice job of leading us into his theories by first providing us with some background information on the four major paintings Courbet completed between 1848 and 1850, two of which Fried has already written about extensively. Fried also provides brief summaries of previous discussions about the Burial and the four major theories posited (1) the additive composition, (2) sources from Dutch paintings or French woodcuts, (3) the black attire and what it represents, and (4) the social and political connotations.

Fried spends a considerable amount of time on the procession and its movement from left to right and back to the left. Fried looks at Courbet’s earlier works and notes Courbet’s tendency to use an S-shaped flow in his landscape paintings. Fried also shows us how Nadar’s Demenagement de l’Assemmblee constituante and Bertall’s Le Jubile des culottes de peau may have inspired Courbet’s procession. (I find these two examples the most intriguing part of this discussion.)

Getting to the main point of the article, Fried is concerned with the concept of the beholder and where exactly the beholder is situated in regards to the scene. For Fried, there are two beholders, the painter-beholder and the beholder tout court and both are part of the painting. Fried discusses at length the depiction of the grave and its location at the bottom of the painting. He suggests that one of the beholders is standing at the unseen side of the grave. Fried also discusses the outward glaze of the crufix-bearer, Colard, and suggests that Colard is staring out at another beholder. Fried goes on to suggest that the gaze is not returned by the beholder and instead is drawn to the hatless figure in profile behind and to the left of Colard. This figure has been identified as one of Courbet’s friends, Buchon. Fried then goes out on a limb and theorizes that because of their friendship and closeness, Buchon is actually Courbet and thus Courbet has placed the painter-beholder inside the painting. While Fried’s arguments about the beholder may need some more work, he has brought up some interesting issues about the beholder and how they are drawn into paintings.