← Honoré Daumier

From Scylla to Charybdis, from "News of the day"

Original title: From Scylla to Charybdis, from "News of the day"

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

March 20, 1869

Medium

Color lithograph on wove paper; third state of three (Delteil)

Dimensions

Image: 9 7/16 × 8 5/8 in. (23.9 × 21.9 cm) Sheet: 14 1/8 × 10 3/8 in. (35.8 × 26.4 cm)

Credit line

Bequest of Edwin De T. Bechtel, 1957

kurzbeschreibung

Unlike many political sheets of those years, Honoré Daumier's colour lithograph 'From Scylla to Charybdis' of 1869 stages Europe's crisis as a sea voyage: a crowned man rows a boat labelled 'EUROPE' between two rocks inscribed 'AUFLÖSTICH ALLEMANDE' and 'QUESTION D'ORIENT'. The print was issued as a colour lithograph on wove paper and is the third state of three (Delteil).

Description

A small rowing boat, its side bearing the name 'EUROPE', carries a crouching man with a little crown; he pulls the oars through churned water. Two rocks rise to left and right, one marked 'AUFLÖSTICH ALLEMANDE', the other 'QUESTION D'ORIENT'. Beyond them lies a calm sea landscape under a blue sky, set against the threatening cliffs in the foreground. Figures and labels follow the tone of nineteenth-century political caricature.

Context

When the sheet appeared in March 1869, Europe was gripped by tensions over the 'German Question' and the 'Eastern Question'. Daumier took up such day-to-day events in his series 'News of the Day'. The reference to Scylla and Charybdis turns the political situation into an image of danger between two threats; the caricaturist, who critically followed the politics of his time, used the familiar classical phrase for this.

Impact

Irony and menace balance each other in this print: the crowned rower looks helpless between the cliffs, while a still sky hangs above him. Precisely the contrast between calm sea and agitated water creates tension and underscores Europe's precarious position. The terse labels on the rocks bring the concrete political dangers into view.

Technique

The motif was printed as a colour lithograph on wove paper, in which the drawing is transferred to the stone with fatty chalk and then pulled. The third state of three (Delteil) reproduces the final revision of the plate. Blues and earth tones dominate the palette and carry the maritime mood of the image.

AI-generated description text

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