Courbet, Gustave (1849). Burial at Ornans [oil on canvas]. The Louvre, Paris.

Near photo-realistic depiction of a funeral. Use of dense tones and impure colors reinforce the somber mood. A sense of rhythm is created above the vertical mid-axis through the repeating head shapes. Due to the somewhat extreme width of the work, the tone seems to favor a still, horizontal orientation. This is contrasted by the vertical arrangement of the figures, who seem to be specific people. | 

A photo-realistic oil painting (form) of a burial (subject). Critiques of the time period have a range of observations, from the work “raising the posture of common people to that of nobility” to the work marking the final decline or the romantic style.

One example of the success of this work is how the individuals in the crowd, which is basically a single “object” established through proximity/overlap, are identifiable through either subtle tonal variations (blacks) or more extreme tonal contrasts (blacks and ivories). The color and value palette includes charcoal, pale oranges which are nearly void of hue, ivory whites, greens as muddy as the oranges, diluted cardinal red (the purest color available), grey and pale, cold blue. Textures (background earth and overcast sky, blacks and ivories), repeated head shapes effectively bind. Splashes of red and pale blue contrast against the overall impure treatment of color.

Space is plastic through proximity/overlap and atmospheric. The ivories and charcoal-blacks nearly divide the picture plane in half horizontally with some weight favoring the right due to the moments of cardinal; vertically the scene seems to repeat this central division. There are no overly-large shapes; they range from small to slightly smaller than middle. Organic shapes are heavily favored, as are impure colors. Near-balance in high/mid/low tones, however nearly all mid tones favor the scenery while high/low tones favor the figures nearly exclusively. Pattern is very subtle. 

There is a single area of primary focus, where the priest and altar boys are located in the lower left quadrant of the picture plane, to include the cardinals. Eye motion flows directly upward with the strokes of the crucifix and more calmly laterally with the crowd…Next to the combination of the reading figure with the ivory dog, directing the viewer toward the exposed grave and back to the beginning. The viewer is a part of the ceremony, or at least nearby. She or he is the average adult height parallel to the ground. The picture plane is simply a pane to view the scene through. The frame supicture planeorts and complements the lateral orientation of this professionally and beautifully bound work. The placement of the cross, contradicting this motion, is particularly effective. 

The treatment of the crowd, the sense of timing created by the figures faces, horizontal orientation of the foreground and background and very conservative use of color create a work that certainly achieves organic unity.