The Sleep (Gustave Courbet Improvisation)
Print information
- Artwork printed by EPSON Stylus Pro 7880 (Epson Ultra Chrome K3 Vivid Magenta) on canvas.
- Limited edition prints of 100. Each artwork will be individually printed, signed, dated and numbered by the artist Vladimir Zunuzin.
- © zunuzin.com watermark is only used online and does not appear on your print.
Payment and delivery
- Payments by Paypal or 2Checkout.
- Free worldwide shipping with tracking. Will usually ship within 3-5 business days.
Tags
- Year created: 2021
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Dimensions (cm): 160x130
This painting, The Sleep (Gustave Courbet. Improvisation) (2021), reimagines Courbet’s sensual subject through an abstract and fragmented lens. Two entwined figures recline in a tender embrace, their forms softened and dissolving into loose, fluid brushstrokes. The intimacy remains palpable, yet the painter’s improvisational style distorts clarity, blurring boundaries between bodies and surroundings.
The black void occupying most of the canvas dominates the composition, creating an unsettling silence. It engulfs the figures, reducing their world to a fragile island of flesh and color, heightening the vulnerability of their closeness. The bright strokes of pink, orange, and green contrast sharply with the darkness, suggesting fleeting warmth amid looming emptiness.
This interplay between presence and absence, desire and dissolution, transforms the scene from pure sensuality into a meditation on impermanence. Love and passion emerge here not as fixed realities, but as ephemeral gestures—flashes of intimacy set against the infinite weight of the unknown.
