For Courbet realism was not the perfection of line and form, but spontaneous and rough handling of paint, suggesting direct observation by the artist and portraying the irregularities in nature. He depicted the harshness in life, and in so doing, challenged contemporary academic ideas of art, which brought him criticism that he deliberately adopted a cult of ugliness.

Courbet spent the last years of his life - in the early 1870s - in exile in Switzerland because of his role in the Paris Commune unrest. Cut off from his family and friends, and weakened by alcohol and disease, he produced a number of accomplished landscapes with a haunting, melancholic tone. The exhibition includes Le Château de Chillon (1874), on loan from the Musée Courbet, France, depicting a picturesque medieval castle that was a symbol of isolation and imprisonment. It was among the last paintings he made before his death.