Honoré Daumier

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) was a French artist and printmaker known for lithographic caricatures that satirized politics, law, and social life.

Lithography: A printing process in which an image is drawn on a flat surface and transferred using the repulsion of oil and water. This process made Daumier’s sharply drawn images reproducible for newspaper audiences.
Gargantua (Daumier lithograph): An 1831 lithograph by Daumier depicting King Louis-Philippe as Gargantua consuming wealth and dispensing favors. The image’s attack on the king led to Daumier’s prosecution and imprisonment.
Louis-Philippe I: King of the French from 1830 to 1848, whose constitutional monarchy ended in revolution. Daumier repeatedly caricatured Louis-Philippe, most famously as a voracious consumer of public wealth.
French press law of 1835: A French law enacted in September 1835 that tightened press restrictions after an assassination attempt on Louis-Philippe. Its restrictions sharply curtailed political caricature in the newspapers where Daumier worked.
Caricature: A portrayal that exaggerates distinctive features or traits for comic, critical, or satirical effect. Exaggeration gave Daumier’s portraits political force as well as comic impact.
Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834: Daumier’s 1834 lithograph depicting victims of a massacre by government troops in a Paris apartment building. It shows his shift from grotesque caricature toward stark condemnation of state violence.
Charles X of France: King of France from 1824 to 1830, overthrown in the July Revolution. The monarchy’s fall preceded the regime Daumier later attacked in his political prints.
Realism (art): A nineteenth-century movement that represented contemporary life without idealizing its subjects. Daumier’s scenes of workers, lawyers, and passengers anticipate realism’s focus on ordinary experience.
La Caricature: A French illustrated satirical periodical published in Paris from 1830 to 1843. Daumier made many of his early political lithographs for this journal.
The Third-Class Carriage: A painting by Daumier showing working-class passengers seated in a crowded railway carriage. Its ordinary travelers exemplify his sustained attention to poverty and urban life.

Linked from 7 pages