Décidément, ce qui, cette année, obtient le plus de succès à l'exposition de sculpture..., from Le Salon de 1857, published in "Le Charivari"
Original title: Décidément, ce qui, cette année, obtient le plus de succès à l'exposition de sculpture..., from Le Salon de 1857, published in "Le Charivari"
kurzbeschreibung
Unlike many exhibition pictures of its day, which dwell on the pomp of the display, this 1857 lithograph by Honoré Daumier puts an odd encounter front and center: two swans paddling about on the floor while the public studies sculptures behind them. The print appeared on July 21, 1857, in the satirical journal Le Charivari, as part of the series Le Salon de 1857.
Description
Visitors dressed in the fashion of the nineteenth century — top hats, wide skirts — move through a gallery. Up front, two swans bustle about on the floor as if they were live exhibits. A figure at the middle turns her gaze toward the sculptures in the rear. The layout stays monochrome, with the even fall of light typical of lithography. Caricature comes through in the strange placement of the swans and in the captions added to the sheet.
Context
Daumier drew this lithograph for his Parisian art-criticism series Le Salon de 1857, published in the satirical paper Le Charivari. The Salon was the official annual art exhibition in Paris and a frequent target of his mockery. The print takes up the debate of the time about the quality of the sculpture on view. Through such lithographs Daumier ridiculed the art world and its audience.
Impact
By humorously exaggerating the swans into part of the exhibition, the sheet exposes the absurdity of certain works. The even spread of light and clear linework give it a calm yet ironic mood. The viewer is left smiling, and the criticism of the art scene never turns too sharp.
Technique
The medium is lithography, a planographic process in which the design is drawn on a stone and then printed on paper. Daumier used fine hatching to render the figures and the swans precisely. The sheet is the second state of two, as recorded in the Delteil catalogue, and was printed in an edition for Le Charivari.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)