← Honoré Daumier

Having had the ambitious idea to outswim the train, from 'The bathers,' published in Le Petit Journal pour Rire, August 6, 1864

Original title: Having had the ambitious idea to outswim the train, from 'The bathers,' published in Le Petit Journal pour Rire, August 6, 1864

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

August 6, 1864

Medium

Lithograph on newsprint; third state of three (Deltiel)

Dimensions

Image: 6 7/16 × 9 5/8 in. (16.3 × 24.5 cm) Sheet: 8 3/8 × 12 3/16 in. (21.3 × 31 cm)

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962

kurzbeschreibung

Unlike the other plates in Daumier's bathing series, this 1864 lithograph does not merely show swimmers: it pits three of them against a passing train. The motif appeared on 6 August 1864 in Le Petit Journal pour Rire; the impression here is the third of three states (Deltiel).

Description

Three bathing men swim in the foreground, heads down as if every second counts. Behind them a train rolls clear across the image from left to right, its forms reduced to bare outlines with no carriage details. Hatching covers the sky and makes it look cloudy. The elongated layout separates the swimmers in front sharply from the train behind; flowing lines give the bodies movement, while the whole sheet stays in shades of grey.

Context

The print belonged to the satirical magazine Le Petit Journal pour Rire, known for its humour and social criticism. The race between man and machine picks up on the contemporary enthusiasm for the railway, which was developing rapidly in France around the middle of the 19th century. Within the series Les Baigneurs (The Bathers), the leisure habits of Parisians were mocked as they increasingly took their pleasure at rivers and bathing establishments. Lithographs served at the time as a widely distributed mass medium for satirical commentary.

Impact

The absurd contest between bathers and train comes across as comic and ironizes human ambition. The clear arrangement and spare drawing bring out the contrast between the sluggish movement of the bodies and the speed of the train.

Technique

The sheet was printed as a lithograph on newsprint, with greasy chalk applied to the stone and then pulled. The hatching of the sky and the flowing contours of the figures reveal Daumier's typical stroke, which creates atmosphere and movement with few means. The present impression corresponds to the third of three states, which points to later reworking of the printing plate.

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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)