it's hard not to interpret many of these scenes as allegorical: courbet's obsession with the medieval chateau de chillon, for instance, involved the brisk market for images of a tourist site, but no doubt it also involved the castle's legacy as a dungeon for political prisoners. he painted it rising from above the icy waters of lake geneva against the gray, backlighted alps, and also from below, as a looming, impenetrable mass, haunted and haunting.