Chus experience in The Mural as an allegory - Essay Example

This is very apparent in the Most Arrogant Man in France, whereby Petra Chu examines the various eras in the works of Gustave Courbet based in the way she uses the rhetorical language. During the 19th century, journalists, artists and writers from France endured suppression by the government. In salon Rhetoric, how The painter’s Studio gives an example of the art in time, conjuring up the trope, irony and allegory as a mechanism of freedom, sovereignty and censure (Chu 1-238). As Michael fried asserted that the progress within the French art was evidenced in the paintings, Chu on the other hand, looks at evolution in terms of social-political circumstances that are within the artwork.

This is, to an extent in line with Nochlin and Rubin, however, in her research, Chu illustrates that the way Courbet uses the real allegory is as though it’s a device for emancipation. There have been different and numerous interpretations concerning courberts images but Chus perceive them differently. She says that most of Courbet’s artistic work merely purposed to produce a commodity in order to make a living out of it, but she viewed in a very different perspective. She continues to say, Courbet may have been pressured by life to produce various commodities in order to make a sell out of it without considering the image that the commodities displayed to the public.

Chu cites one of the letters sent by Courbet to Théophile Gautier "if I am making art, or rather, if I am attempting to make it, it is first of all to make a living from it."(Chu 13). As we see, Courbet produced commodities after experiencing financial hardships without necessary being concerned the type of message that his commodities portrayed to the world. Chu perceives the pictures in a deeper angle than we can think off. For example, Chu illustrates Courbet may be deeply appealed by some subjects, for instance the fleshy nudes and the deep caverns.

In such paintings and images, Chu sees the role of