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

Daumier Honore Victorien (1808–1879), French graphic artist, painter and sculptor. Born February 26
1808 in Marseille. From 1814 he lived in Paris, from the 1820s he took lessons in painting and drawing. mastered the art
lithography. After the Revolution of 1830, Daumier became the most prominent political cartoonist in France and won
public recognition as a ruthless grotesque satire on King Louis Philippe and the ruling elite of society.


"Pears". Caricature of Louis Philippe (1831)

Daumier's cartoons were distributed as single sheets or published in popular illustrated publications.
(magazines "Caricature", 1830-1835; "Silhouette", 1830-1831; "Sharivari", 1833-1860 and 1863-1872). The basis for the series
lithographic portraits-cartoons “Celebrities of the Golden Mean” (1832–1833) were fashioned by Daumier
sharp portrait busts of political figures (painted clay, circa 1830–1832, 36 extant
sculptures).

"Legislative womb". Lithography. 1834.

In 1832, for a caricature of the king (Gargantua, 1831), the artist was imprisoned for six months. In lithographs 1834
Daumier denounced the mediocrity, self-interest and hypocrisy of the authorities (“The Legislative Womb”, “We are all honest people,
embrace”), created heroic images of workers (“Galileo of modernity”), an image imbued with deep tragedy
reprisals against them (“Transnonen Street April 15, 1834”).

Chess players. (1863)

After the prohibition in 1835 of political caricature, Daumier turned to everyday satire, ridiculed spiritual squalor
Parisian townsfolk (“The Best in Life”, 1843-1846; “Good Bourgeois”, 1846-1849; series “Caricaturan” with a collective
image of the adventurer Robert Macer, 1836-1838). During the new rise of French political caricature, associated
with the Revolution of 1848–1849, created (first in a grotesque bronze figurine, 1850, Louvre, Paris, and then in a number of
lithographs) a generalized image of the political rogue Ratapual. Masterfully and temperamentally combining the richest,
caustic imagination and precision of observation,

Burden, 1850-1853 Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Daumier gave journalistic sharpness to the very language of graphics: the stinging expressiveness of the line, as it were, in itself
exposed the callousness and vulgar complacency of the objects of his satire. Daumier's mature lithographs are velvety
stroke, freedom in the transfer of psychological shades, movement, light and shade gradations. In painting by Daumier, innovatively
rethinking the traditions of romanticism, heroic grandeur intertwined with the grotesque, drama with satire, sharp
the specificity of the images is combined with the freedom of writing, bold generalization of forms, powerful expressiveness of plasticity
and light contrasts.

The Singers, 1860 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

In the 1850s and 60s, the dynamic composition became more and more intense and impetuous, the volume was succinctly molded by color
stain and energetic juicy brushstroke. Along with the topics that fascinated him in graphics (the pathos of the revolutionary struggle in
"Rebellion", 1848; the embodiment of the inner significance and spiritual beauty of a simple person in the "Laundress", about
1859-1860, Louvre, Paris), theater, circus, traveling comedians become the favorite motifs of Daumier's painting.
(“Melodrama”, circa 1856–1860, Neue Pinakothek, Munich; “Chrispen and Scapin”, circa 1860, Louvre, Paris). Series of paintings
Daumier is dedicated to Don Quixote, whose comical appearance only emphasizes the spiritual exclusivity and tragedy
the fate of the great seeker of truth (“Don Quixote”, circa 1868. New Pinakothek, Munich).

Collectors of prints, 1859 Louvre, Paris

Painting by Honore Daumier “Collectors of engravings”.
Two elderly gentlemen are looking through a folder of prints in an art dealer's gallery. Obviously both
only pretend to be experts. The picture could serve as a bitter commentary on the fate of the artist himself,
who could not find buyers for his work among the wealthy members of the middle class. Daumier
was an excellent satirist, able to convey the character of a person with one stroke of the pen. were well known and
his portraits of leading political figures, full of caustic sarcasm, were perceived with caution, as well as
comments on current events of the day.

Allegedly disabled, 1857 Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Daumier had a rare gift to succinctly convey in the picture what would require a verbose description. He was
also an excellent painter and sculptor. His caricatures in the technique of lithography, the total number of which is
about four thousand, collected by famous artists such as Edgar Degas; they amaze with amazing freedom
performance comparable only to Japanese calligraphy.
Daumier died on February 11, 1879 in Valmondois, near Paris.

"Rebellion" (1848)

"The Miller, His Son and the Donkey" (1849)

Victor Hugo. (1849)

"Don Quixote" (1868)

O. Daumier. "Laundress". Around 1859 - 1860. Louvre. Paris.

Camille Desmoulins in the garden of the Palais Royal

The drawing belongs to the few works by Daumier on historical subjects. Daumier selects one of the episodes
French Revolution: July 12, 1789 in the Palais Royal, lawyer and writer Camille Desmoulins, later
an active participant in the first stage of the revolution, called on fellow citizens to arms, inviting them to pin a green
cockade or green leaf as a sign of readiness to win or die.

"Shaken by legacy". Lithograph from the album "Siege". 1871.

"Third Class Car". OK. 1862-63. Metropolitan Museum. NY.

"Advice to a young artist". Around 1860. National Gallery of Art. Washington.

"Defender". Watercolor. 3rd quarter 19th century Private collection.

Delacroix, referring to Daumier, wrote: "There is no person whom I would appreciate more and whom I would admire more than you."

Eugene Delacroix

self-portrait

Baudelaire said that the fury with which Daumier stigmatizes evil "proved the goodness of his heart."

Charles Baudelaire

“Through you the people will speak to the people,” wrote the famous democratic historian Michelet to Daumier. And these words came true.

André Gil

Honoré Victorien Daumier was born on February 26, 1808 in Marseille, the son of a glazier. His father had literary abilities. Trying to realize them, in 1814 he moved his family to Paris. However, his dreams did not come true. There is not enough money and little Honore has to start working: first as a messenger, and later as a seller in a bookshop. He was never destined to take a real course in painting.

Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume

Since 1822, Daumier has been working in fits and starts with the artist A. Lenoir, sometimes working from nature in the studio of Suisse. But he spends a lot of time in the Louvre, where he copies famous masters, especially Titian and Rubens.

Union of Earth and Water

Peter Paul Rubens

Daumier would hardly have hit the road of art soon, if not for one circumstance that made it possible to connect the "artist's pampering" with the earnings of an artisan - the demand for lithographic work.

Enrolling in the study of lithography to the little-known artist Ramele, Honore at first pursued only one goal - to help his parents financially. So at first he performed small pictures, music titles, children's alphabets for the publishers of Beliar and Ricour. But soon Daumier found a real point of application for his talent. Earning money in magazines, since 1830 Honore began to collaborate in the satirical edition of Charles Philipon "Caricature", where the best draftsmen of that time worked: Monier, Granville, Travier, Charlet, Decamps. From now on, Daumier forever connected his fate with the political press, signing with a pseudonym, then "H.D." and, finally, the full name and surname. He soon gains fame as a master of biting satirical graphics.

Illustration for "Father Goriot"

Daumier worked for Caricature from 1831 to 1843 (minus a 6-month prison sentence) and for the Charivari magazine, also founded by Philipon, from 1835 to 1874 (excluding 1860-1863), leaving work here only when almost completely blind. Over the years, the artist has completed 4,000 lithographs and 900 woodcuts, to which must be added about 400 oil paintings, watercolors and sketches.

Fighting masons

Of Daumier's early lithographs, Gargantua (December 15, 1831) is best known. Here the artist depicted fat Louis Philippe, absorbing the gold that the officials take away from the exhausted people. This lithograph was exhibited in the shop window of the Auber company and gathered a lot of people. The government did not leave Daumier's work without consequences, sentencing him to six months in prison and a fine of 500 francs.

Daumier is not satisfied with the first achievements. He works hard on a caricature portrait, bringing to the grotesque the characteristic features of the person being portrayed. This brings success - the figures on his sheets of the thirties are extremely voluminous, plastic. Such is the lithograph “The Legislative Womb” (1834), where in front of the viewer on the benches located in an amphitheater, one can see the ministers and members of parliament of the July Monarchy. In each face, a portrait resemblance is conveyed with merciless accuracy. Revealing and emphasizing the physical ugliness and moral squalor of these people, the artist creates portraits-types; their sharpened individual characterization develops in them into a social generalization, into a merciless denunciation of the malignant stupidity of the forces of reaction.

The sheets in which Daumier reveals the class struggle, showing the role of the working class, reach the same force of influence: “He is no longer dangerous to us”, “Do not interfere”, “Rue Transnonin April 15, 1834”.

L.N. Volynsky writes about the lithograph “Transnonen Street”: “A ray of bright light, as it were, pulls out of the twilight the figure of the executed, drawn with all the ruthlessness of naked truth, while the figure of the murdered woman - perhaps his wife - is shrouded in a hazy shadow. This shadow of compassion, as it were, is moving from the depths, it is about to envelop everything with a farewell veil, and we hasten to peer in order to have time to remember and carry away in our hearts anger and hatred for the executioners.

You can let it go, it's no longer dangerous

After the so-called "September Laws" of 1834, directed against the press, it became impossible to work in the field of political satire. Daumier now draws themes from Everyday life raising big social issues. At this time, entire collections of cartoons of everyday life and customs were published. Daumier, together with the artist Travies, creates a series of "Parisian types" (1835-1836).

Minister Guizot throws out the slogan "Get rich!" Daumier responds to this by creating the image of Robert Macher - a swindler, rogue, speculator, dying and resurrecting again (Caricaturan series, 1836-1838). In other lithographs, Daumier exposes the venality of the court ("Judges of Justice", 1845-1849), bourgeois charity ("Modern Philanthropy", 1844-1846). In a number of lithographs, Daumier shows the wretchedness of the self-satisfaction of the French tradesman. Such, for example, is the sheet “It is nevertheless very flattering to see your portrait at an exhibition” (from the series “Salon of 1857”). In this regard, Daumier created other series: "The Bachelor's Day" (1839), "Matrimonial Mores" (1839-1842), "Pastorals" (1845-1846), "The Best Days of Life" (1843-1846). In 1841-1843 he creates a series of " Ancient history”, in which he boldly parodies the plots and images of ancient mythology, putting the modern bourgeois in the position of ancient heroes and gods.

Diogenes and Alexander the Great

The drawing style is changing. The stroke becomes more expressive. As contemporaries (Théodore de Banville) say, Daumier never used sharpened new pencils, he preferred to draw with fragments so that the line was more diverse and lively. The artist's works acquire a graphic character, plasticity disappears.

“On April 16, 1846, he married his girlfriend, Marie Alexandria Dassi, who had shared the hardships and joys of his hectic existence for several years,” says M.Yu. Hermann. “She was just twenty-four years old, was a dressmaker, and, to tell the truth, did not know much about her husband's work. But she became his faithful comrade, knew how not to lose heart in difficult times. The loneliness that brought him many bitter moments left Daumier's life forever. Now he had his own home, warmed by the presence of cheerful and affectionate Alexandria. Even working in his studio upstairs, in complete solitude, he did not feel empty around him. A round, laughing face with an upturned nose, a stately tall figure of his wife left a tangible imprint on almost all the female images that Daumier painted.

Their son, named after Honoré's father, died after only a few weeks of life. He left behind a poignant memory and a vague sense of guilt in front of a tiny creature that visited the world so briefly.

Daumier always aspired to paint. It could not be otherwise: he had an ardent, artistic temperament and was in the friendly environment of painters - Corot, Diaz, Daubigny, Delacroix. However, eternal need and all-consuming journal work prevented his desire. Only at the age of forty did he take up the brush for the first time, when it seemed that, along with the victory of the February Revolution of 1848, his accusatory mission was over.

Don Quixote

On March 9, he portrays the "Last Council of Ex-Ministers", where he glorifies the rebellious France, expelling the government of the July monarchy. For the official competition, he creates an allegorical image of the Republic - a beautiful, majestic composition that is so monumental that it could serve as a monument project. Daumier paints The Rebellion (1848) and The Family at the Barricade (1848-1849).

family at the barricade

But the “good bourgeois” passed by the beautiful Republic, the government did not give him a reward, and as before the artist was doomed to poverty. At first, Daumier worked on magazine lithographs at night so that he could devote himself to painting during the day. Then in 1860 he tries to break his contract with Sharivari. It was during this period - the 50-60s - that his works in oils and watercolors appeared one after another, those very wonderful watercolors for which he received pennies during his lifetime and which are now valued almost worth their weight in gold.

In painting, Daumier is often lyrical and thoughtful. The images he creates are full of nobility and dignity.

“Light in the paintings carries an emotional load, and through it Daumier places compositional accents, using comparisons of light and dark in the most diverse way,” writes N.V. Yavorskaya. - His favorite effect is backlighting, when the foreground is darkened and the background is light. Such, for example, are the paintings "Before Bathing" (circa 1852), "Curious at the Window" (circa 1860). But sometimes Daumier resorts to a different effect: the half-darkness of the background seems to dissipate towards the foreground, and white, blue, yellow colors begin to sound intensely (“Exiting School”, circa 1853-1855; one of the options for “Third Class Carriage”, circa 1862 ). Usually Daumier is characterized by a muted range of colors, saturated with all sorts of shades and reflections. Some special light illuminates everyday scenes that acquire significance, lose their routine. Interest in lighting effects that enhance the drama of the action makes Daumier turn to the image of the theater. He shows the psychology of the audience excited by the performance ("Melodrama", 1856-1860), or actors with pronounced facial expressions ("Crispen and Scapin", 1858-1860).

Crispen and Scapin

Daumier the painter played no less a role in the history of art than Daumier the graphic artist. He introduced new images into painting, interpreted them with an extraordinary power of expressiveness. Not a single painter before Daumier painted so freely, did not generalize so boldly in the name of the whole. He anticipated in many ways the further path of development of painting.

In a series of paintings dedicated to Don Quixote, Daumier's realism reaches a special generalizing power. In the rhythms of the steady Don Quixote striving forward and the constantly lazy lagging behind of Sancho Panza, two opposite poles of the human spirit seem to be symbolized.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

If in "Don Quixote" Daumier draws a tragic contradiction between the two sides of the human soul, then in the series "Buffoons" we face a terrifying contrast between the outward appearance of a person and his essence. In one of these best paintings by Daumier - "Scapin", located in the private collection of Ruar, we see Pierrot ... but what kind of Pierrot is this, how different he is from the gentle and lunar hero Watteau! This is a proletarian with a haggard and rude face, only dressed in a cheerful carnival robe.

In the series "Lawyers" Daumier shows the false pathos of facial expressions and gestures of these demosthenes of our time, turning them into talking machines with violently fluttering togas.

two lawyers

A whole group of Daumier's works is devoted to the creation of majestic images of workers. Blacksmiths, laundresses with children, water carriers, barge haulers - these are the only "Parisian types" who were spared by Daumier's irony and, moreover, in whose depiction his brush achieved the greatest synthesis, the greatest pathos, the greatest monumentality.

The most significant is the Laundress cycle. Living on the embankment of the island of Saint-Louis, Daumier constantly watched their hard work.

“The painting known as “The Burden” also belongs to the “Laundressers” cycle,” writes N.N. Kalitina. - It was made, in all likelihood, later and produces, in comparison with the "Paris Laundress", a slightly different impression. Before us is also a laundress with a child, but in her appearance there is less calm confidence, grandeur. When you look at her, you feel rather a feeling of anxiety, anxiety. The laundress and the child are walking with difficulty along the deserted embankment into the wind. The whole body of a woman is full of great tension - with effort she carries a heavy basket.

During the years of the Second Empire, Daumier's position, already unenviable, worsened even more. He was refused by the editors of the Sharivari magazine, who considered that "Daumier's works discourage subscribers." At the same time, another magazine, Monde Illustri, which began publishing engravings from the artist's drawings, ceased cooperation with him. Only in 1863 did the Sharivari magazine conclude a new contract with Daumier and the artist returned to political caricature.

One lithograph shows the Constitution, shortening the dress of Liberty, the other shows Thiers as a prompter, guiding the actions and words of politicians. The artist will give a number of anti-militarist satires, such as "The world swallows a sword." In a series of lithographs from 1870-1872, Daumier exposes the perpetrators of the disasters in France. In the lithograph "This killed that" he shows that the election of Napoleon III was the beginning of all disasters. The lithograph "Empire is the world" depicts a field with crosses and tombstones. On the first monument there is an inscription: “They died on the Boulevard Montmartre on December 2, 1851”, on the last one - “They died at the Sedan 1870”, that is, Daumier claims that the empire of Napoleon III brought death to the French from beginning to end.

Daumier's sheets are tragically expressive. They are symbolic, but the symbol is ideologically saturated and convincing. In one of the lithographs of 1871, against the background of a formidable sky, a split, mutilated trunk of a once powerful tree is depicted. He has only one branch left that resists the storm. Under the picture is the caption: "Poor France, the trunk is broken, but the roots are still strong." This allegorical image captures the tragedy of France that has just been experienced. With a sharp juxtaposition of light and shadow, with energetic lines, the artist managed to give a powerful image that personifies the vitality of the country. The lithograph proves that the artist believed in the strength of France, in its courageous people.

All his life the artist suffered hardships. Friends tried to help by referring some customers to him. In most cases, however, Daumier was unable to complete the sale. N.N. Kalitina cites the following episode in her book: “Once such an incident occurred, testifying to the amazing modesty and impracticality of the artist. Daubigny recommended Daumier to a wealthy American who bought paintings in Europe. Having previously warned the artist to dress up and ask for at least 5,000 francs for the painting, Daubigny arrived with the buyer at the studio. The American was quite satisfied with the required amount, and he wished to see other works. The artist showed another, much more significant work, for which, however, without receiving instructions from Daubigny, with his usual modesty, hesitantly asked for 600 francs. The American rejected the painting and generally no longer paid attention to the artist selling his things cheaply.

No material deprivation broke Daumier's pride and his republican convictions. When the ministry of Napoleon the Little offered him the Order of the Legion of Honor at the end of his life, Daumier had the courage to reject this "gift of the Danaans", with modest humor motivating his refusal "with the desire to look in the mirror in old age without laughing."

In 1873, due to weakness of vision, the artist stopped working. Half-blind and old, Daumier would have ended his career in complete poverty if not for the friendly support of the landscape painter Corot, who bought him a small house in the town of Valmondois (on the Oise), where Daumier died on February 10, 1879.

Text by Dmitry Samin

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.

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, various and interesting life, 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 Ancient History series (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"