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Best known as an innovator in Realism (and credited with coining the term), and a landscape and seascape painter, his scenes are not Romantic or idealized as was customary style at the time. Rather, he portrayed dynamic scenery, subject to continuous and progressive change. Courbet believed the Realist artist's mission was the pursuit of truth which would help erase social contradictions and imbalances.

For Courbet realism was not the perfection of line and form, but spontaneous and rough handling of paint, suggesting direct observation by the artist and portraying the irregularities in nature. He depicted the harshness in life, and in so doing, challenged contemporary academic ideas of art, which brought him criticism that he deliberately adopted a cult of ugliness.