Courbet's native region was the Franche-Comté, a province in eastern France bordering Switzerland. Citizens of the Franche-Comté (in English, literally "Free Country") took pride in their anti-monarchial republicanism during the French Revolution of 1789 and cultivated a spirit of sturdy independence, akin to the rugged character of the province's distinct, local geography. Courbet worked in and around his hometown of Ornans, creating portraits of the landscapes he knew so well, with its steep valleys and stony protrusions. Nineteenth-century Parisian audiences often found these unfamiliar views, entirely devoid of the traditional idealism of Italianate landscape painting, to be shockingly unconventional. As in his figural work, Courbet sought to infuse his landscapes with a sense of the world in its actual state, which often resulted in a brutal effect entirely alien to the classical landscape tradition.