"I think many of us working alone at home right now can identify with Gustave Courbet’s painting Isolated Rock (ca. 1862). Windswept clouds, a stony shoreline, and the singular rock, roughly yet beautifully painted with a palette knife, make for a melancholy image that evokes feelings of helplessness and inevitability in the face of natural forces. These days, however, I’m choosing to give Courbet’s painting a more hopeful (and very anthropomorphic) spin by imagining this magnificent, solitary rock facing the sea, sky, and future with strength and determination."
Posted by Lisa Small Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877). Isolated Rock (Le Rocher isolé), ca. 1862. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer, 41.1258 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)