Courbet The entire range of Courbets work, from landscapes to erotic nudes. Gustave Courbets (1819-77) unconventional paintings of real people in everyday scenes came to embody values with radical implication Addresses the entire range of his work, including landscapes, portraits and erotic nudes Combines a clear reading of the paintings with a discussion of the personal, political and social framework in which they were created Written by an acknowledged scholar of 19th-century French art James Rubin is Professor of Art History at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and also teaches at the Cooper Union in New York City. His books include Impressionism in the Art & Ideas series, Realism and Social Vision in Courbet and Proudhon and Manets Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets.