# Portrait of Hector Berlioz [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [COURBET, Gustave]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 61 x 48 cm ## Commentary Courbet made a point of representing the major figures in French cultural life of the first half of the nineteenth century. The celebrated Romantic composer Hector Berlioz did not, however, much like Courbet's portrait, which he thought lacking in either feeling or identifying attributes. Courbet painted the composer on the by now conventional dark background in an attitude of retreat, as though hounded by destiny. <P> <TABLE ALIGN=LEFT CELLPADDING=5 BORDER=1 WIDTH=320 BGCOLOR="\#99CCCC"> <TR VALIGN=MIDDLE><TD><IMG SRC="/support/gif/listen.gif" BORDER=0 VALIGN=MIDDLE> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 11 minutes\):<BR><A HREF="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/19\_cent/berlioz\_cellini.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><B>Hector Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini, overture</B></A> </TD></TR></TABLE> ## Related artworks - [A Burial at Ornans]() - [After Dinner at Ornans]() - [Artist at His Easel]() - [Beach near Trouville]() - [Burial at Ornans \(detail\)]() - [Cliffs at Étretat]() - [Courbet in his Cell at Sainte-Pélagie]() - [Farmers of Flagey on the Return from the Market]() - [Firemen Running to a Fire]() - [Flower Still-Life]() - [Landscape]() - [Landscape with a Dead Horse]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()