Honoré Daumier {dohm-ee-ay', awn-ohr-ay'},
b. Feb. 26, 1808, d. Feb. 10, 1879, was a French lithographer, draftsman, painter, and sculptor,
best known for his social and political caricatures. Largely self-taught, he studied briefly
with Alexandre Lenoir, but he learned most from his study of the classical sculpture and Dutch
and Flemish painting in the Louvre, Paris.
"Crispino and Scapino"
by Honoré Daumier
Scala/Art Resource, NY
Daumier entered (1828) the Academy but quickly rebelled against its doctrinaire methods. In
1831, he became a contributor to the satirical journal La Caricature. When it was censored by
the regime in 1835, he joined the staff of Le Charivari and was associated with that journal
for the next 30 years.
The main subjects of Daumier's satirical cartoons
were the corrupt regime, the injustice of the law courts, and the hypocrisy of the middle class.
He created universal types and characters personifying all aspects of the "human condition"; his
scenes of the low, the humble, the commonplace, and the banal recall the world reflected in the
novels by Honore de Balzac. Daumier's best-known caricatures include the monumental and popular
political drawings The Legislative Paunch and Rue Transnonain, April 15, 1834 (both 1834) and
two lithographic series introducing his famous embodiments of all human vices, Robert Macaire
(1836) and Ratapoil (1850).
In the mid-1840s, Daumier turned to painting and
sculpture, producing his famous series Lawyers and Third Class Carriage. His paintings and
sculpture, however, are generally considered inferior to his more than 5,000 extant lithographs,
which display a great mastery of line and highly refined tonalities.
CGFA - Virtual Art Museum
Carol L. Gerten maintains an impressive image library of meticulously
scanned works from hundreds of renowned artists, including this collection
featuring 5 of Daumier's paintings.
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