

The Temptations of Courbet
From Courbet's dreams and fears
2017 - 2022
Courbet's temptations could be the life we dare not live:
the people we want to merge with or the places we want to travel despite the terror of throwing ourselves into the void.
José Luis Serzo uses the painter Gustav Courbet as an excuse to take us to a stage where pleasure, eroticism and guilt dance; a pictorial and sculptural reverie that teaches us the world without fuss or filters.
From the dreams and fears of Courbet imagined by Serzo we witness a study of erotica linked to fantasy, banished long ago from the sex we practice in this society of omniscreen.
Serzo studies in this exhibition the sexuality lived as a game and approaches the female anatomy with an authority that almost frightens; bodies that are landscapes, postures that are the stellar motion of the universe.
It fills them with pulsating iconographies, death masks, flowers, eroticized garlic and a sea of crimson curtains that crave skirts towards the madness of feeling, losing precisely the senses with it. And so, he tells us that to live intensely is also to approach death.
From the dreams and fears of Courbet imagined by Serzo we witness a study of erotica linked to fantasy, banished long ago from the sex we practice in this society of omniscreen.
Serzo studies in this exhibition the sexuality lived as a game and approaches the female anatomy with an authority that almost frightens; bodies that are landscapes, postures that are the stellar motion of the universe.
It fills them with pulsating iconographies, death masks, flowers, eroticized garlic and a sea of crimson curtains that crave skirts towards the madness of feeling, losing precisely the senses with it. And so, he tells us that to live intensely is also to approach death.
Lidón Sancho Ribés. Art critic and writer
- All
- Drawing
- Exhibitions
- Other media
- Painting


The Survival of Desire

Studio for muse-witch

Playing Susan with some old men

Little Sunrise

The Spies of Creation

The Temptations of Courbet

The Muse of Courbet

The other origin of Courbet

The Liar

The desired outcome

She too

The Liar

Mr. Courbet

Eros and Thanatos

The bird muse of Courbet

Allegory about life and death

The Blue Hour

The Courbet String

Sooner or later… justice in hand

Origin and destination

Musa and the Teatrorum

Woman and wild boar

The (false) memories of the young Courbet

Freedom strained

The Muse of the Seine

Project for installation in the Álvaro Alcázar gallery

Fear and desire

The hidden image

Studio for a trio

Study for polyptych of Courbet

Courbet’s Journey

The Secret Game

The Secret Game of Obsession

Smoke and cloud

Courbet’s Teatrorum

Courbet’s Dreams

In the smoke of the pipe

Polyptych of Courbet

The Sin of Passion

Studio for installation

Study for a goddess with three suns

Origin and destination. Mother earth.

Exhibition of THE TEMPTATIONS OF COURBET. Álvaro Alcázar Gallery. 2022.

Paradise was within

Flowers and goddess

The weight of mystery

The memories of the skin

The other is always to blame for guilt

The Secret Creation

Courbet’s Dreams

Courbet between fear and desire

The Secret Creation of Courbet’s Dreams and Fears

Courbet about to wake up

Those blissful flowers

Essay for a great and glorious elevation of Courbet

Nocturnal appearance

Power and glory
