← Honoré Daumier

I have filled you up full to the top. I wished it would crush you, from "News of the day"

Original title: I have filled you up full to the top. I wished it would crush you, from "News of the day"

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

August 2, 1871

Medium

Lithograph on newsprint; second state of two (Delteil)

Dimensions

Image: 9 1/4 × 7 1/2 in. (23.5 × 19 cm) Sheet: 11 5/16 × 8 7/8 in. (28.7 × 22.5 cm)

Credit line

Bequest of Edwin De T. Bechtel, 1957

kurzbeschreibung

Honoré Daumier takes aim at the fallen Bonapartist regime in this 1871 lithograph: a sack-shaped mountain stamped BONAPARTE bears down on a uniformed figure crawling along the ground. Printed on newsprint, the sheet belongs to the Actualités series.

Description

Sacks pile into a pyramid, each one lettered BONAPARTE. Beneath them a man in uniform and helmet twists in a crawling posture under the weight. The surroundings stay bare and flat. Along the top edge run the series title ACTUALITÉS and the page number 585. At the bottom appears the line Je t'en avais comblé, je t'en veux accabler. (Vers connu.)

Context

Daumier made the print on August 2, 1871, a few months after the Franco-Prussian War ended and Napoleon III fell. It points to the burden of Bonapartist rule, which pressed on France throughout the Second Empire. The quoted verse alludes to an excess that ends in being crushed. Le Charivari published the sheet as part of the Actualités series.

Impact

The arrangement produces a feeling of oppression and makes the weight of history almost physical. Grotesque exaggeration of the situation fuses political critique with a touch of absurdity.

Technique

Daumier worked in lithography on newsprint; this is the second of two states (Delteil). The process allowed nuanced shading and fast reproduction for the daily press.

AI-generated description text

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