Honore Daumier was one of the prolific French artists in the 19th century because he specialized in various media including lithography, oil painting, and caricaturing. He was a staunch political activist who criticized the opulent lifestyles of the French royalty who lived in luxury while the majority of the French people lived in extreme poverty. From the website of the National Gallery of London, two independent biographies made by Eitner and Lindsay were published for the public’s awareness about this great artist. To start, Honore Daumier was born in Marseilles in 1808. The 19th century period in which he lived was rather tumultuous, poverty, and class inequality were endemic not only in France but also in other European countries. Daumier’s father worked as a glacier and eventually went to London in 1816 to establish his name in the city as a renowned glass maker; however, Eitner’s account’s explained that the attitude of the Honore’s father was rather different which made him weird to the society’s standards. When he was 12 years old, the young Daumier began to search for work as an assistant in a law firm. By this time, his artistic skills began to emerge but just like other artists of the past, the Daumier family cannot possibly enroll Honore to an art school because of their poverty (Eitner, Honore Daumier; Lindsay, Honore Daumier). One of the family’s close friends named Alexandre Lenoir persuaded the Daumier patriarch to allow Honore a chance to become an artist and for this, he managed to convince him to enroll his son under his own tutelage where the young boy can exercise and learn more about fine arts.
Daumier also enrolled himself to Academie Suisse, an artistic establishment similar to art school however there were no teachers for the students. The only thing that allowed this institution to survive was to offer the newbie artists life lesson wherein they would have the chance to sketch and paint live models directly. Based from Eitner’s account, it was said that the young Daumier only brought with him his drawing tools to the Academie Suisse. From this point on, the succeeding years improved the skills of the young artist. In addition to his sketching skills, he also had the talent in lithography and by the tender age of 14 years old, Honore Daumier had already made different samples and experiments on the lithography printing. Yet, although he had the talent, the artist knew that what he needed to succeed was the “technical skills” in order to produce more detailed lithographic works as well as to practice his profession. In 1825 for instance, Daumier had eventually accepted to work in a printing industry. By 1829 and throughout his life, Honore Daumier became actively involved in politics and he used his skills in lithography and painting to depict the common life and bastardize the portraits of the famous French officials and royalties. Among the people included in his savage criticisms was the French king known as Louis Philippe, which Eitner notes that: “he [Daumier] ridiculed with a corrosive wit that brought him to the notice of the press police and earned him a jail term of six months in 1832” (Eitner, Honore Daumier). Some of his notable works were mostly caricatures published in 1831 by Charles Philipon in the La Caricature; a journal known for its attacks towards the corrupt French government. Altogether, Daumier created 3, 958 lithographic artworks for Philipon’s weekly paper. The emergence of Daumier’s lithographic works was made possible due to the decreased press censorship in the 1830s and this event allowed the influx of the multitude of illustrated pamphlets, newspapers, and other print media scrutinizing the government’s behaviors towards its subjects.
When the Siege of Paris occurred in 1871 after the defeat of Franco-Prussian alliance, Daumier was ordered to protect the Louvre Museum collections from the enemies as well as from the war itself. The artist used the conflict as a theme for the majority of his prints which depicts gory, sadness, brutal, and realistic portrayals of the wounded and dying soldiers in the war. Despite his declining eyesight, Daumier still continued to produce more lithographs detailing the common life. From 1874, his friend Corot gave him a small fortune to purchase a property in the vicinity of Valmondois and by 1877, the French government endowed him a monthly pension to support himself. The famous French writer Victor Hugo was an admirer of Daumier’s artworks and in 1878, the writer organized an exhibit to showcase the artistry and genius of the man who expose the real face of France to the world. Daumier still continued to paint and produce numerous lithographs for his amusement but unfortunately, a stroke claimed his life in the 10th of February of the year 1879. Because of the people’s growing interest towards his work, Daumier’s artworks became one of the highly coveted pieces in the 1900. However, since the majority of his last artworks were left unfinished and badly preserved, art scholars still cannot help but become doubtful towards the so-called authentic Daumier’s works since many of his pieces were handed from different people and thus, it was a high possibility that some were altered to cope up for the high demands (Eitner, Honore Daumier).
This paper will present two of the most important surviving works of Honore Daumier. The first work was The Fight between Schools (fig. 1) created in 1855. In this cartoon, Daumier illustrates the differences between the artworks done in the idealistic style. The picture shows two men, the one on the right was the personification of the ideal art. The man on the right strongly resembles the typical Greco-Roman sculptures with proportioned bodies, muscular, and ideal in a sense that there was no ounce of fat seen on his body. He was naked just to emphasize his even proportions. Atop his head was a hat, cross between Greek and Roman designs. Instead of the actual spear and shield, Daumier substituted these to an oblong palette with some pigments scattered on it and the paintbrush was sketched long and thinner to mimic the spear. His face, although shown sideways, can be seen ridiculing the old man on the right. The Greek man’s emotion was arrogant and his wide mouth was open; it was also possible that he was issuing threats and challenging the man to fight with him to see whose school will win. On the other hand, poor old man on the left part was sketched with a stunned emotion written on his face. On the contrary, his body attributes lack the ideal body proportions. He has a pudgy belly, old and wrinkled skin, large nose, and messy hair. His clothes were good but in bad shape due to his physique, his boots were large compared to his feet. He was also holding a palette as well as a paintbrush; yet, he was adamant to face his opponent in artistic battle. The iconography of Daumier’s work symbolizes that in 19th century, most people especially the nobility favored beautiful artworks that depicted homey and quiet life. In the idealistic perspective, realism was not shown as accurately. The contours of the figures in the lithograph were clearly shown; there was a strong emphasis on the figures since the artist used lines to express the difference between the two men. Chiaroscuro was prevalent; there was a balance between dark and light hues. The Fight between Schools is a two-dimensional artwork, the shapes of the figures were organic or based from the real images of a human. The implied light can be seen shining from the right side based from the shadows on the figures. The colors were monochromatic; the sketch was only a lithograph and the shades of black and white vary on each perspective. For instance, the darker black shades were located on the inner parts of the bodies away from the light; while the grayish color or the lighter shading was located on the surfaces near the light. Sketch strokes called hatching was rough and not proportion. Take a look on the palette of the Greek man on the right; the lines were rough, long, but not similar since most of the lines are drawn roughly with varied intensity. This implies a visual texture of roughness. Furthermore, the lines also suggest motion of the characters. The paintbrush aimed by the Greek man on the right was directed to the small one on the left; therefore, provides an emotion of tenseness to the viewers and creates a dramatic effect within the sketch. The process of lithography was invented by the Alois Senefelder who once worked as a German actor. Lithography is created using the flat part of the stone with a wax such as crayons or by tusche ink. To avoid smearing of the wax and to preserve the figure, the artist places the stone into the acid for the wax to set in place. Printing the design on paper requires the submersion of stone into the water (Getlein 188-189).
Picture this out: two females seated on the front; one woman tenderly cradling her infant towards her breast as if a gesture to protect it from harm; an old woman with a worn out face; looking pale and blank while her eyes stare to into the space probably thinking of something else. Her wrinkled hands clasped the handle of the straw basket, in a way, perhaps she was thinking of what will her family ear for the night. The waning afternoon light hid the image of the boy seated carelessly in an attempt to slumber amidst the rickety carriage. Men chatted at the background while some of their fellow passengers waited patiently; their faces devoid of any emotion shrugging the experience of riding a third class carriage were already a common event to them. Daumier showed the actual life of the ordinary people in the 19th century in the Third Class Carriage (see fig. 2), an oil painting he made in 1862. The picture depicts the division the of classes; and while the rich enjoyed the liberties of having their own spacious personal carriages, the poor relied heavily on mass transportations such as the common carriage which do not provide ample space to house the entire horde of passengers. The chiaroscuro of dark and light colors illustrated the situation of the carriage with a dark atmosphere. The female passengers on the foreground somehow were spared from the tight cramped spaces at the back. The background portrays the tightly cramped space with lots of men still attempt to converse to each other despite the situation. In this painting, gone was the idealistic portraiture. Like most of Daumier’s works, he did not hesitate to explore the expressive qualities of the line and used it to illustrate the harsh, brutal, and unforgiving life endured by the poor in their daily life. Every figure in the painting had dark heavy contoured lines on them which are a great contrast to the paintings of the Romantic period. There was no sublime; the image was not awesome in fact because it deals with the hardships in life. What Daumier intended to portray with his iconography was the side effects of modernization. Like Britain, France was also undergoing a rapid industrialization; in other words, more capitalists created businesses and the poor were needed as workers. However, it was the modernization that pushes these people to rely on these public carriages to go to various places. The lack of comfort seen in Romantic paintings was absent in Daumier’s work. I chose Daumier’s works because it was not sugarcoated for it illustrates the daily lives of the people and the importance of sticking into the realistic portrayals of the subjects. These paintings evoke an emotion of helplessness and anger towards the situation.
WORKS CITED
Daumier, Honore. Combat des Écoles ? L'Idéalisme et Le Réalisme (Struggle between the schools). 1855. Lithograph. Digital Image. Web. Artsearch.nga.gov.au. Accessed 12 Mar. 2016.
Daumier, Honore. The Third-Class Carriage. 1862. Oil on canvas. Digital Image. Web. Metmuseum.org.Accessed 12 Mar. 2016.
Eitner, Lorenz. "Honore Daumier." French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century. Part I: Before Impressionism. 2000. Web. National Gallery of Art. 12 Mar. 2016.
Getlein, Mark. Living with Art. 10th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. E-book.
Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Vol. 2. 14th Ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage, 2012. E-book.
Lindsay, Susan Glover. "Honore Daumier." European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. 2000. Web. National Gallery of Art. 12 Mar. 2016.
Sayre, Henry M. A World of Art. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2012. E-book.
