The Ground of Painting

This chapter shows how the historiography of the ground relates to narratives of modernism. It foregrounds the significance of materiality and art-technological approaches, and demonstrates their implications for the making and meaning of art. Looking at the handling of the ground in L'atelier du peintre provides a broader historiographical lesson regarding the importance of the substance of painting, an aspect that has often passed unmentioned within Western narratives of modernity. Within conceptions of modernism, the ground assumes a meaning that has been progressively dissociated from its materiality, emerging on the surface as a pictorial effect in its own right. Modernist approaches tend to neglect the history and significance of the support and the tangible material production of canvases, which serve as the initial foundation of any painting. Art historical research on Gustave Courbet's handling of materials has focused primarily on his distinct brushwork.