@article{intel:/content/journals/10.1386/maska.29.165-168.68_1, author = "Kreft, Lev", title = "Artist at work - 160 years ago", journal= "Maska", year = "2014", volume = "29", number = "165-168", pages = "68-79", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1386/maska.29.165-168.68_1", url = "https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/maska.29.165-168.68_1", publisher = "Intellect", issn = "2050-957X", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "Michel Chevalier", keywords = "art and political economy", keywords = "Gustave Courbet", keywords = "Universal Exhibition 1855", keywords = "atelier", keywords = "Louis Blanc", abstract = "Abstract Courbet's 'The Painter's Studio' opens the whole field of modernist art's mission. After an introductory explanation of the painting, we enter its immediate context: the year 1855, when it was exhibited on the opposite side of the entrance to the Universal Exposition. There is another context, that of the atelier as such: the atelier was a common name for artisans' workshops and studios. But during this period, it became more than that. It was Louis Blanc's proposal for a solution to society's disorders: without ateliers as free associations of workers, the free market deteriorates into crisis. He had strong opponents. Their ideologue was Michel Chevalier, who claimed that only a free market without associationism could save modern society from its instabilities. Courbet's painting is an allegory of capitalist society and an image of the artist's atelier as a place from which a critical political economy of the world is revealed.", }