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| PC1970.59
Honoré Daumier French (1808-1879) M. Guizot 1833
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PC1970.60
Honore Daumier French (1808-1879) from
Actualitésseries:
1866
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| PC1970.62
Honoré Daumier French (1808-1879) from
Professeurs
et Moutards series:
1846
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PC1970.63
Honoré Daumier French (1808-1879) from
Histoire
1842
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| PC1970.64
Honoré Daumier French (1808-1879) from
Actualités
series:
1867
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| Like
many artists of the nineteenth century, Honoré Daumier, came from
a modest background. Although born in Marseilles, Daumier's family moved
to Paris following his father's aspiration to become a poet. His father
was a glazier and a frame-maker, and it was in his father’s shop that Daumier
probably saw many works of art—mostly popular imagery of the bourgeois.
He began studying art at a young age and showed considerable proficiency
in drawing. The greatest benefit to his career, however, was probably the
art school he attended, the Académie Suisse. The school, compared
to others, was very liberal in its instruction and allowed its students
a creative freedom not enjoyed elsewhere.1
Daumier's art found its full fruition after the July Revolution of 1830. This revolt, which overthrew the regime of Charles X, was initiated by ranks of journalists, angered by Charles’ ordinances against the press.2 By participating in this movement, Daumier brought out the political voice inside of himself and began to do lithographs satirizing the government. Together with Charles Philipon, a fellow Republican and caricaturist, they presented their artistic and editorial views in two main publications, Charivari and La Caricature. One of Daumier’s first projects for the publications was a lithographic series of full-length satirical portraits of public figures which appeared in La Caricature in the early 1830s. Number 59 in the Wake Forest collection is an example of one of these prints. Unlike the others, however, Daumier’s treatment of Guizot, then the minister of public instruction, was not overly harsh. His representation is fairly subtle, showing him as a pensive, melancholic man, as he sits stolidly on the treasury bench, renamed by Daumier the "punishment bench." 3 In his long career with the republican publications, Daumier published many prints that appeared sequentially. Number 63 in the collection, Télémaque Ravageé par L’Amour belongs to the Histoire Ancienne series. These fifty prints were first published in Charivari in the years of 1841 to 1843. and were untraditional representations of classical myths and legends. Daumier, who was noted for saying, "We must be of our own times," did this series in protest of the French educational system.4 Republicans like himself had hoped studies of antiquity would cease upon the new era of enlightenment ushered in by the Revolution of 1830. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In this particular print, Daumier makes a spoof of the story of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. Too young and weak to kick out suitors who chased Penelope during the absence of her husband, he suffered from the scorn of older men. Daumier shows him here as a scrawny man, unlike the gods and heroic mortals described so elegantly in the classroom. Number 62 in the collection, The Drawing Lesson, was from a series called Professeurs et Moutards, or Teachers and Brats. It points to the educational system, and in this instance, even perhaps draws a comparison to Daumier’s own days as an art student.5 While the teacher checks the pupil’s drawing to the original, the student proudly compares the original to his own significant work of art. Later in his career, Daumier’s interests came back again to those things of the political realm. After avoiding politics after the September Laws of 1835 which censored the press, Daumier found his political pen again in the latter years of his life. Both number 60 and number 64 in the collection belong to this group of prints and comprise two of the at least 1056 prints in the Actualités series, or New Items.6 The subject of the prints ranged from harsh weather and popular gossip to contemporary events.7 Both were published in Charivari in the years 1866 and 1867 respectively. Number 60 is titled In Germany, We Are Always Ready! Precaution is the Source of Security. The subject of the print is the beginning of the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, which ended with Prussian victory at Sadowa.8 The image is a critical view of the newly emerging Prussia under the leadership of a very bellicose Bismarck. Number 64, titled A Surprise Message for the Exposition of 1867, is also a print based on international politics. It expressed Daumier’s interpretation of the new electoral reforms passed in England and Ireland in 1864. This print, like much of Daumier’s work, reflects the nature of society in the nineteenth century world. 1.
Passeron, 1981, 12-13.
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