The fate of this French artist gave him great talent, which brought recognition, but did not give wealth and fame. The famous painter, sculptor and graphic artist of the 19th century, Honore Daumier, devoted most of his life to the genre of caricature. He denounced what seemed to him wrong, unfair, blatant - society, laws, the bourgeoisie. His works raised the people to the revolutionary barricades, and the rebel painter himself fought tirelessly against the authorities.

Childhood and youth

The future artist was born on February 26, 1808 in Marseille, in the family of a glazier. When the boy was 8 years old, his father moved the family to Paris, hoping that there his craft would be in greater demand. At the same time, he hoped that his son would help him. But he showed no interest in the glass business.

He grew up as a real slob, the boy’s favorite pastime was to observe the life of the Parisian streets: there in the alley wash the laundry, and prostitutes are trading on the corner, the baker unloads a cart of fragrant croissants ...

Around the young Honore, a diverse and interesting life was in full swing, which I so wanted to capture in all the beauty of the moment. If only he could create the kind of drawings he saw in bookshop scrapbooks! But the boy only depicted caricatures of the neighbor boys, with charcoal on wrapping paper.

Having managed to work both as an assistant lawyer and as a clerk in a bookstore, at the age of 14, the boy finally realized his old dream - he began to take lessons in painting and sculpture. Soon he met in the gallery "Palais Royale" with famous artists of those times Camille Corot, Jean Granville, began working in the workshop of the painter Eugene Bourdin. In 1828, Honore became interested in a new image technique - lithography. In this genre, he performs his first works, which bring him a long-awaited income.

Creation

In the 1830s, Honore's lithographs were seen by the famous French caricaturist Charles Philippon, head of France's first satirical magazine Caricature, and he invited him to cooperate.

Daumier signed his journal work with the pseudonym Rojlin. In 1832, he portrayed the new monarch in the caricature of Gargantua, for which he was sent to prison for six months, from where he came out famous and even more revolutionary. In 1830-1832, Daumier created a gallery of sculptures and caricature portraits of bourgeois politicians called "Celebrities of the Golden Mean".

In 1834, the inhabitants of Paris saw such lithographs as "The Legislative Womb" (a collective portrait of the Chamber of Deputies), "We are all honest people, let's embrace", "This can be set free."

The Parisians were waiting for the bright political and social works of Daumier to enjoy a new portion of satire, needed at that time more than ever, but few knew the author of these masterpieces. But the talent of the master was appreciated by friends, such painters as Jean-Francois Millet, Corot and Delacroix. As well as writers, including, and. Balzac said that Daumier lives by himself, and Baudelaire wrote that "his drawing is colorful in nature."

In 1835, the authorities closed the magazine Caricature, then Daumier went to another edition of Philippon - Charivari. Here the artist has been publishing his sharp works for almost 30 years. The signature style of the author is the creation of thematic series.

For example, the series Ancient history(1841–1843) ridiculed bourgeois art. In the series "Parisian types" (1839-1840), "Good bourgeois" (1846-1849), "People of justice" (1845-1848), the author exposes petty-bourgeois thinking, corruption of officials, and the decline of morals.

After 1848, the artist changes direction in fine arts- Switches to painting, works in oils and watercolors. The genre orientation of the master's works is also changing: aggressive caricature gives way to realistic everyday sketches, without depriving them of a deep social meaning. The heroes of his paintings are ordinary people, the heroes of our time: workers, hard workers, peasants (the cycle "Washerwomen", the paintings "Third Class Carriage", "Family at the Barricade").

The crown of Daumier's painting period is rightfully considered a series of paintings "Don Quixote", in which the author symbolically depicted a person in an imperfect society and world. Critics see autobiographical motifs in this existential series: the lonely knight of a sad image is Honore himself, and his windmills are a vicious state system.

Towards the end of his life, out of need, he again turns to the genre of lithography, only now the painter focuses on military themes. Daumier's last masterpiece is the Siege series of works dedicated to the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).

The heritage of Honore Daumier is almost 4 thousand lithographs, over 900 drawings for engravings, over 700 paintings and 60 sculptures. The artist's work did not receive wide recognition during his lifetime and was appreciated only in the 20th century.

Today, the works of the genius of lithography are in the largest collections in the world - the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Walters Museum in Baltimore, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, in the Munich Pinakothek, the Russian Hermitage and others.

In 1992, the animated film Daumier's Law was released, in which the director-animator Jeff Dunbar used drawings by a French cartoonist.

Personal life

Daumier devoted his whole life, including his personal life, to the struggle against the existing system and the ruling regime. As a true artist, he could not surrender to his passion half-heartedly, so he never had a wife and children.

Death

In the 1870s, Daumier's eyesight rapidly deteriorated. Due to progressive blindness, the artist became helpless, left all alone.

Painter friends came to the rescue. Camille Corot rented a house for Honore, hired a nurse and paid off her debts. Daumier died February 10, 1879 in complete poverty in the Parisian suburb of Valmondois.

Paintings

• 1832-1834 - "Celebrities of the Golden Mean"
• 1834 - "The Legislative Womb"
• 1836-38 - "Caricaturan"
• 1834 - "Rue Transnonen"
• 1850-53 - "Laundress"
• 1856 - "At a concert"
• 1863-65 - "Third class carriage"
• 1956-60 - Melodrama
• 1870 - "Don Quixote"
• 1870-71 - "The Siege"

If we talk about critical realism in the literal sense of the word, then the palm belonged to the great artist Honore Daumier. He, like Balzac, created the "Human Comedy" of the era in thousands of drawings, lithographs and paintings. The grotesque sharpness of Daumier's images does not exclude realism - on the contrary, the grotesque and satire were an adequate form of realistic knowledge of the world in the 19th century, and the aesthetic shades of humor had never before been developed so richly. Daumier started out as a political cartoonist. In the 1830s satirical magazines "Caricature" And "Sharivari" led by a fiery Republican Philippon, day after day they made all of Paris laugh at the king of stockbrokers, the treacherous Louis Philippe.

Louis Philippe I, former Duke of Orléans, took the throne in the days of the revolution of 1830, after the expulsion of the Bourbons, and promised the people "sacred to observe the constitutional charter", "govern only through laws", promised that his monarchy would be "the best of the republics", and he himself "citizen king".

In the very first years, it was discovered that the "king-citizen" did not intend to carry out radical reforms or to give up personal power. The republican opposition, feeling the support of the people, made extensive use of the press. Republican press organs showed heroic steadfastness: despite the repressions (only in four years - from 1830 to 1834) there were 520 press trials in France; in total, the journalists received 106 years in prison. And this despite the fact that the law "on freedom of the press" officially existed.

Such was the school of life and the art school of the young Daumier - he also did not escape prison for attacks on the king. Philippon attracted a group of talented artists to work in satirical publications: Granville, Dean, Charlet, Travies. Daumier was the most brilliant in this galaxy. Philippon's collaborators attacked the government without mercy, without respite. It was a virtuoso baiting with the laughter of a large beast. If necessary, cartoonists used Aesopian language, but quite transparent - readers of magazines always understood what and who in question. So, the image of a pear meant the king himself.

The famous 1831 cartoons of Louis Philippe turning into a pear reflected his decline in popularity. (Honoré Daumier, after a drawing by Charles Philipon, for which he was imprisoned)

A well-known nickname King Pear was the invention of artists: the flabby physiognomy of Louis-Philippe with a cook on his head really had a pear-shaped shape, and the salt of the pictorial metaphor was that in French la poire has two meanings - "pear" and "fool". With inexhaustible ingenuity, cartoonists played with the pear motif. Even when the court ordered the publisher "Sharivari" to print another court verdict, it was printed in such a way that the lines of the typographical set formed the outlines of this fruit.

Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) Gargantua, lithograph, 1831 National Library of France

Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) Bourgeois, 1832

Daumier painted Louis Philippe with a puffed-up pear in royal robes, and gluttonous Gargantua, eating the country, and a pot-bellied bourgeois in a top hat, and a clown.

Honore Daumier (1808-1879) Draw down the curtain, the farce is played. From "La Caricature" dated September 11, 1834 paper, pencil lithograph, scratching 20x27.9 cm. State Hermitage Museum

"Down the curtain, the farce is played!",- orders a fat clown, standing at the forefront. And the curtain creeps down. And a farce is playing out on the stage - a meeting of the Chamber of Deputies. The king needed her to come to power, he no longer needs her. This is one of Daumier's sharpest caricatures. A figure with a huge belly, in a clownish plaid suit, illuminated from below by the footlight, looks both comical and ominous, and puppet lifelessness is emphasized in the sitting parliamentarians.

In Daumier's satires, funny and terrible are intertwined, often his lithographs resemble Goya's engravings, but without demonism, without a hint of fear of the irrationality of life. In Goya, "the sleep of reason breeds monsters," in Daumier, the waking mind mocks monsters.

N.A. Dmitrieva. Brief history of arts. 2004

Honore Daumier was born on February 26, 1808 and grew up in the family of a glazier, whom even kings feared.

In the nineteenth century, Honore could not even hope for a successful career as an artist, but three revolutions changed the life of the French and put everything in its place. Paris is a city that loves lucky and strong people, so only self-confident individuals could achieve something in life. When the family of the future artist moved to France, he was eight years old.

Being a small and unintelligent boy from the province, Honore began to steal buns, tease prostitutes in the gateway and did not think about studying at all. The father became worried and seriously took up his offspring. He wanted his son to become a glazier just as he did, but Honoré had other plans. In addition, the boy studied poorly, and new skills were given to him with difficulty.

Thanks to the fact that Daumier's father put in new windows in a law office, he managed to attach his son as a lawyer's messenger. The nimble boy quickly and well coped with his work, so he even had time to study the works of Italian artists. Honore did not work for a long time with a lawyer who did not tolerate the antics of the young talent and kicked him out.

Daumier did not grieve and immediately set to a new job - he became a clerk in a bookstore. From childhood, the future cartoonist loved to draw cartoons on everyone he liked or disliked. Sometimes for his talent to realistically depict people in a humorous manner, Honore received from older boys. The character of the young guy cannot be called exemplary, since Daumier was a little impudent and liked to communicate, thanks to which he quickly found friends among famous Parisian artists.

He became a close friend of such prominent personalities as Delacroix, Granville and Corot. According to the famous writer Honore de Balzac, the real Michelangelo lives in Daumier. Drawings, lithography and engravings became Daumier's creative element, but he never became a painter. But caricatures remained his favorite genre until the end of his life, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison when he drew a caricature of the king.

After leaving prison, Honore becomes a happy and successful person who is invited to work in all satirical publications. Honore Daumier became the favorite of the public, who admired his drawings, causing laughter, joy and fun.

The artist was also known to outstanding personalities who respected him for his great talent. It is noteworthy that Daumier did not sign his caricatures, since there was no need for this: only he could create such masterpieces. The fact is that a revolutionary couple is the best and most suitable time for cartoonists. It was at this time that Honore Daumier worked, who passed away on February 10, 1879.

Daumier Honore Victorien (1808 - 1879) - French graphic artist, painter and sculptor. The son of a master glazier.

Since 1814 he lived in Paris, where in the 1820s. took lessons in painting and drawing, mastered the craft of a lithographer, and performed small lithographic works. The work of Daumier Honore Victorien was formed on the basis of observation of the street life of Paris and a careful study of classical art. Daumier, apparently, participated in the Revolution of 1830, and with the establishment of the July Monarchy, he became a political cartoonist and won public recognition with a ruthlessly grotesque satire on Louis Philippe and the ruling bourgeois elite. Possessing political insight and the temperament of a fighter, Daumier Honore Victorien consciously and purposefully connected his art with the democratic movement.

Daumier's caricatures were distributed in the form of separate sheets or published in illustrated editions, where Daumier Honore Victorien collaborated (in "Silhouette", "Silhouette", 1830–31; in Caricature, "Caricature", 1831–35, founded by the publisher Ch. and Charivari, Charivari, 1833–60 and 1863–72). Boldly and accurately molded sculptural sketches-busts of bourgeois politicians (painted clay, circa 1830–32, 36 busts have been preserved in a private collection) served as the basis for a series of lithographic caricature portraits (“Celebrities of the Golden Mean”, 1832–33).

In 1832, Daumier was imprisoned for six months for a caricature of the king (lithograph "Gargantua", 1831), where communication with arrested republicans strengthened his revolutionary convictions. Honoré Victorien achieved a high degree of artistic generalization, powerful sculptural form, emotional expressiveness of contour and chiaroscuro in lithographs in 1834; they denounce the mediocrity and self-interest of those in power, their hypocrisy and cruelty (a collective portrait of the Chamber of Deputies - "The Legislative Womb"; "We are all honest people, let's embrace", "This can be set free"); the image of the massacre of the workers is imbued with deep tragedy (“Transnonen Street on April 15, 1834”); in the lithographs "Freedom of the Press" and "Modern Galileo" Daumier Honore Victorien created the heroic image of a revolutionary worker.

The prohibition of political caricature and the closure of Caricatures (1835) forced Daumier Honore Victorien to confine himself to everyday satire. In a series of lithographs "Parisian types" (1839-40), "Matrimonial manners" (1839-1842), "The best days of life" (1843-1846), "People of justice" (1845-48), "Good bourgeois" (1846 –49) Daumier caustically ridiculed and stigmatized the deceit and selfishness of philistine life, the spiritual and physical squalor of the bourgeois, revealed the nature of the bourgeois social environment that forms the personality of the layman. A typical image, concentrating the vices of the bourgeoisie as a class, Daumier created in 100 sheets of the Caricaturan series (1836-38), which tells about the adventures of the adventurer Robert Maker. In the series "Ancient History" (1841-43), "Tragic-classical physiognomies" (1841), Daumier maliciously parodied bourgeois academic art with its hypocritical cult of classical heroes. Masterfully combining grotesque fantasy and accuracy of observation, Daumier gave a journalistic accusatory sharpness to the graphic language itself: the caustic, stinging expressiveness of the line, as it were, tore off the mask of decency from the bourgeois, revealing soullessness and vulgar complacency under it. Mature lithographs by Daumier Honore Victorien are characterized by dynamics and juicy velvety strokes, freedom in the transfer of psychological shades, movement, light and air. Daumier Honore Victorien also created drawings for woodcuts (mainly book illustrations).

A new short-lived rise in French political caricature is associated with the Revolution of 1848–49. Welcoming the revolution, Daumier Honore Victorien exposed its enemies; Bonapartism was personified by the image-type of the political rogue Ratapual, first created in a grotesque dynamic statuette (1850, a bronze copy in the Louvre, Paris), and then used in a number of lithographs. In 1848, Daumier Honore Victorien made a painting for the competition "The Republic of 1848" (option in the Louvre). From that time on, Daumier Honore Victorien devoted himself more and more to painting in oils and watercolors. The pathos of the revolutionary struggle (The Uprising, circa 1848; The Family at the Barricades, National Gallery, Prague) and the unstoppable movement of crowds of people (The Emigrants, circa 1848-49, circa 1848-49, Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal), the artist’s respect and sympathy for the working people (“Laundress”, circa 1859–60, Louvre; “3rd Class Wagon”, circa 1862–63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and an evil mockery of unscrupulousness bourgeois justice ("Defender", watercolor, private collection). Domier Honore Victorien was especially fascinated by the theme of art: its role and position in society, the psychology of creativity and perception; the favorite motifs of painting by Daumier Honore Victorien are theatre, circus, print shops, spectators, actors, itinerant comedians, artists, collectors (Melodrama, circa 1856–60, Neue Pinakothek, Munich; Crispen and Scapin, circa 1860, Louvre; "Advice to a Young Artist", 1860s, National Gallery of Art, Washington).

Daumier created a number of portraits, paintings on literary, religious, mythological subjects; a series of paintings dedicated to Don Quixote, whose comic appearance only emphasizes the spiritual greatness and tragedy of the fate of the seeker of truth ("Don Quixote", about 1868, Neue Pinakothek, Munich). In Daumier Honore Victorien's painting, the artist's connection with romanticism, the rethinking of his traditions are especially tangible: heroic grandeur is intertwined with the grotesque, drama with satire, the sharp character of the images is combined with freedom of writing, bold generalization, expression, the power of plastic form and light contrasts; during the 1850s and 60s. the dynamic composition becomes more intense and faster, the volume is laconically molded with a color spot and an energetic, juicy brushstroke.

At the end of the 60s. everyday satire began to give way to new themes in Daumier's lithographs: the artist anxiously followed the growth of militarism and colonialism, the reprisals against national liberation movements, the intrigues of the military and the church. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 is dedicated to the last masterpiece of Domier Honore Victorien - the album "The Siege"; the allegorical images of the album are full of amazing tragedy and deep bitterness, the language of lithography is striking in the power of generalization and conciseness of precise, elastic lines (“Empire is the world”, 1870; “Shocked by inheritance”, 1871). The huge heritage of Daumier Honore Victorien (about 4 thousand lithographs, over 900 drawings for engravings, over 700 paintings and watercolors, over 60 sculptural works), one of the pinnacles of critical realism in world art, characterizes Daumier Honore Victorien as a great innovative artist, defender of the interests of the workers.

Among the French masters who left their mark on world history, Honore Daumier occupies a place of honor. His creative path has always been closely connected with the revolutionary struggle. Coming from the people, Daumier always kept close contact with him. His paintings expressed the aspirations of ordinary French people - the artist carried love for the people and faith in their strength through his whole life.

Daumier was born in Marseille, the son of a glazier. Barely reaching a conscious age, he went to the epicenter of the revolutionary struggle - to Paris, whose inhabitants rose three times during the 19th century to fight their rulers. In 1830, as a result of the July Revolution, the French finally put an end to the Bourbon dynasty. In February 1848, a revolution broke out in Paris again, when the proletarians fought the bourgeois, and in 1871 the revolutionary proletariat came to power for the first time and the days of the Paris Commune began. The works of Daumier (and he was not only a talented painter, but also a graphic caricaturist and sculptor) are canvases that capture the era. He himself was a living participant in the struggle.

French graphic artist, painter and sculptor Honore Daumier

"Rebellion" (1848)

In art, a person has always been important for Daumier - the artist created a whole series of works that glorify human labor. Sympathizing with ordinary people, he exposed the jaded bourgeois-noble society. That is why the social-bit caricature occupies a leading place in the artist's work. Daumier always strove to be a man of his time, to speak a language understandable to his contemporaries. The artist's legacy includes about 4000 lithographs, more than 900 engravings, over 700 paintings (oil, watercolor) and drawings, more than 60 sculptures.

"Going to the Wedding" (1851)

Of the paintings by Daumier, the most famous are: "Rebellion" (1848), "Melnik, his son and donkey"(1849), "Don Quixote leaving for the wedding" (1851) and "Laundress" (1861). He painted pictures until his death. Even when completely blind, he continued to paint by touch. His grotesque, exaggerated and deliberately rude images aroused admiration Edouard Manet And Edgar Degas, and many impressionists called him their teacher.

"Evening Moscow" brings to your attention several interesting stories from the life of an artist.

1. Once Daumier asked his friend, who had his own house in the village, to draw his ducks. Specially for the arrival of the artist, ducks were herded from all over the poultry yard. While they were floundering in the puddles and running around the yard, Daumier paid absolutely no attention to them, smoking a pipe and talking with a friend about something extraneous. The friend was disappointed, but a few days later he went into the artist's studio and was surprised by one sketch. - Did you recognize the ducks? - asked the artist, - yours! They were very good.

2. In one of the workshops in Paris, which Daumier rented with friends, there used to be a bureau for hiring workers. The artists did not change the sign, only painted it a little and corrected it. One day a lady came to them and said that she was a midwife and wanted the same sign as they have - bright, pleasant and attracting customers. So Daumier received one of his first painting orders, and earned fifty francs for a "nice" sign. At that time - good money, besides, many artists could not earn this for their work.

3. The gatekeeper of the workshop, Domier Anatole, humanly liked the artist. He even cleaned up for free. The artist enjoyed talking to him, but he wanted to repay his kindness with something else. Anatole, when he was cleaning, sang opera arias, and once revealed to Daumier that he would have dreamed of getting into a performance at the Comic Opera, but there was not enough money. Domier rejoiced. - Rejoice! - he said, - I have the right to enter this Opera-Comedian of yours, but nothing in the world will force me to cross the threshold of this institution. So you can go there as much as you like, at least every day, just introducing yourself at the checkout as me, they still don’t know me there. Then Anatole said that he did not have a tailcoat, and Honore gladly gave him his. Since then, the porter often went to performances, but, unfortunately, in addition to his addiction to music, he had an addiction to alcohol. Then rumors spread around Paris that Honore Daumier was an alcoholic.

4. After the caricature of Louis Philippe, which was called "Gargantua", Honore Daumier was thrown into jail for six months. One of the inmates, who considered himself a great physiognomist, saw Daumier and decided that he was facing a hardened criminal. He walked around the artist for a long time, trying to find out why he was imprisoned. However, Daumier put on an important air and only occasionally answered that this was a great secret, which only convinced the thief of the correctness of his conclusions. The artist was soon recognized by the manner of drawing (he made sketches with charcoal). However, the physiognomist thief refused to believe it and convinced everyone that they were sitting with the Big Shot.

"Gargantua" (1831)

5. Daumier did not like many innovations. He especially did not like photography, which he did not consider art, and then many believed that photography would replace painting. The artist thought that photography depicts everything but expresses nothing. At that time, all of Paris was full of three-legged cameras. Photographers put them in front of the object they liked, opened the lens and stood with a watch in their hands, sometimes for several minutes. One of Daumier's friends praised photography lovers for their patience and endurance. “Patience is the virtue of donkeys,” snapped Daumier.

6. Daumier had a friend - the one-legged artist Diaz, who, despite his physical handicap, had a violent temper. He was a Barbizon painter and at one time was very famous. One day he returned from a walk excited, saying that he had met a young man in a blouse worn by porcelain artists. He was drawing, and some insolent people were spinning around him and mocked him. Then Diaz grabbed a log and dispersed the scoundrels, and then drew attention to the fact that the young man draws well. “And what is his name?” asked Daumier. I don't remember, I think his last name Renoir. The poor fellow does not have enough money for paints, and from this he abuses the burnt bone. I think he needs help. And you? - With pleasure, - the artist answered. So the young and unknown at that time Renoir got a whole wealth - a bag of not quite dried paints.

7. They wanted to award Daumier with the Order of the Legion of Honor, at the same time they were going to celebrate him with the same award. Both refused. Courbet wrote to the minister that he did not want to accept insignia from a government associated with the monarchical system. The calculation was correct - a letter was published by one Parisian newspaper, all about the revolutionary Courbet spread throughout France, and he became even more famous. Daumier did not explain his refusal. Soon after, the two artists collided in the street. - Oh, how good - Courbet rushed to meet him - you refused the cross, like me! But why didn't you say anything? One could fan a whole storm out of this! - For what? - Daumier was surprised, - I did what I had to do. Why else would anyone know about this? After that, Courbet once sadly remarked: - Nothing will come of Daumier. He is a dreamer.