Courbet intended to depict what is real, thus he depicted an elderly person and a youngster who looks to be too young for such back-breaking work. This is hardly a heroic story; rather, it is an accurate representation of the brutality and hardship that was a frequent feature of mid-century French rural life. And, like with so many other exceptional works of art, there is a strong relationship between the tale and the artist's technical choices, which include brushstrokes, structure, line, and color. The Stonebreakers painting is noteworthy for its foresight as well as its accurate depiction of their time period, emphasizing the relevance of class discrepancies, implying that future clashes would be linked to new situations forming in cities. Courbet's brushstrokes, like the rocks, are rugged - harsher than one might expect for the mid-19nth century. This demonstrates that the artist's approach to painting was a conscious critique of the flawlessly perfected, advanced Neoclassicist style that defined French painting in 1848.