A rainy day: The guest is condemned to six hours of billiards, from "The joys of country life"
Original title: A rainy day: The guest is condemned to six hours of billiards, from "The joys of country life"
kurzbeschreibung
Issued in October 1865, this lithograph by Honoré Daumier formed part of his series "Die Freuden des Landlebens" (The Pleasures of Country Life). It offers a comic glimpse of rural leisure: in a billiard room two men are passing the time, one of them apparently having given up and lying on the floor. Two states of the print exist; this impression is the second.
Description
Two contrasting figures occupy the interior. A man in spectacles, top hat and pipe stands upright at the billiard table, while across from him a bearded fellow sprawls on the ground, evidently ready to abandon the game. Balls and a cue rest on the table's surface. A window opens onto trees and falling rain. Grays and blacks dominate the monochrome sheet, whose caricatural edge stays good-humored.
Context
Daumier made this lithograph for the satirical journal "Le Charivari" as a contribution to "Die Freuden des Landlebens," a series published between 1858 and 1865 that took aim at bourgeois stays in the country and their supposed pleasures. The print appeared on October 4, 1865, placing it among Daumier's later works for the journal.
Impact
The comedy arises from exaggerated postures and the absurd predicament of the man on the floor. Everyday humor here meets close observation of human despair, a trait characteristic of Daumier's social satire.
Technique
The image was printed as a lithograph on newsprint, in the second of two states. Lithography allowed for graduated tones of gray and a lively line that did much to shape Daumier's distinctive style.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)