← Honoré Daumier

Just look what a degenerated and corrupt world we are living in...., from 'Sketches from the Salon,' published in Le Charivari, June 8, 1865

Original title: Just look what a degenerated and corrupt world we are living in...., from 'Sketches from the Salon,' published in Le Charivari, June 8, 1865

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

June 8, 1865

Medium

Lithograph on newsprint; second state of two (Delteil)

Dimensions

Image: 8 7/8 × 8 11/16 in. (22.6 × 22.1 cm) Sheet: 11 1/2 × 10 7/8 in. (29.2 × 27.7 cm)

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1922

kurzbeschreibung

Honoré Daumier's 1865 lithograph catches visitors to an exhibition room standing before a sculpture set on a windowsill and studying it. The print belongs to the series 'Croquis pris au Salon' and appeared in the satirical journal Le Charivari on 8 June 1865. It was printed in black and white on newsprint.

Description

Up front, two men — one of them in a top hat — gesture broadly toward a stylised figure perched on the windowsill. Other visitors have gathered behind them, their eyes also fixed on the sculpture. The arrangement keeps the exchange between public and exhibit at its centre. Greys and whites govern the monochrome sheet, lit evenly and without shadow. Caricatural features and an expressive hand define the style.

Context

The caricature came out within Daumier's series 'Croquis pris au Salon', published by the Paris satirical paper Le Charivari. With this sequence the artist followed the annual Salon exhibitions, which in the second half of the nineteenth century were repeatedly shaken by disputes over modern movements. In those years Daumier regularly took aim at the art-going public and its reactions to contemporary work.

Impact

Exaggerated gestures and the expressive drawing of the figures give the sheet an immediately comic, pointed edge. Attention falls on the relationship between viewers and exhibited objects, which here appears ironically skewed. Even lighting and a clear layout lend the scene something matter-of-fact, almost documentary, which only sharpens the satirical tone.

Technique

For the lithograph the drawing was laid on a stone with greasy chalk and then printed on paper. This is the second of two states, as the Delteil catalogue records. Printing on newsprint matched publication in a journal and allowed the caricature to circulate quickly.

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