Five Honore Daumierstrategy and style

Daumier is a moralist with the suppleness of an artist and the accuracy ofLavater.

I aIARLra nnt1DIA.ntxe'

DATIMIF.a, unlike Nionnier, never became trapped in a character of hisOwn i nvention, nor in narrow limits of style or social viewpoint. The firstimpression front it review of Daumier's caricatures is one of spectacularvariety, both `linguistic' and pictorial. Just as Daumier included not one

but many physiognornic types within the category `lawyer', though all oft hem show vanity and inhumanity, so he had not one graphic formula foroutrage, but it range offinely discriminated indications- the surprised andhelpless outrage of the lawyer's victim, the outrage of offended bourgeoisdecornln, or the righteous outrage of the liberated woman asked by herhusband to sew on a trouser button; moral variations conveyed by facial

expression, by bearing and gesture and by context. He specified the tonewith which a gesture is assumed -- the adverbs of his syntax - reluctantly,eagerly, deliberately.

The effect of Daumier's unprecedented completeness of information

about character and social interaction, as Baudelaire pointed out, ismoral not at a personal but at a political level. His vignettes of social

encounters, conflicts or collusions are not isolated: cumulatively they tellus ( as t hey told their contemporary public) about a social fabric, deter-mined by specific political and economic conditions.

What was unique was not Daumier's social insight or political commit-

ment, but the combination of these with his mastery of traditional prob-lems of figure drawing and figural composition, and with his enlargement

of the pictorial repertoire of facial and bodily expression. Degas was notcapricious in taking Dautnier its seriously as he did Ingres or Delacroix.And Balzac reflected that Dautmer `has something of Michelangelo underhis

; kin'. 2

Honors Daumier (T 808 79) was born in Marseilles, a city of exuberantgestures, His father, a glazier, was an aspiring poet and playwright, whose

ambitions brought t he family to Paris in 1815, and whose poverty led

1 32

MONDE 11.1 .usrnJOURNAL HESDOMADAIRE

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them to move repeatedly within the city. Daumier did not fit clearly into

any defined social class. His family was essentially artisan turned bohem-ian, in the double sense then current: artistic on the one hand and, on the

other, poor and marginal. Daumier grew up detached, involved, and ont he alert.

He began work as an errand boy for a legal firm and went on to

apprentice to a lithographer (Charles Ramelet) and a publisher (Z. F. J.Belliard) who also made lithographic portraits. In 1 828 he attended in-formally the studio of Boudin, an academic artist. There he met otheryoung sculptors and painters: August Preault, Philippe-Auguste jeanron,and Narcissi Diaz de la Pctia who became one of the Barbizon painters.Alexandre Lenoir, founder of the h1useum of French Monuments, be-friended Daumier in his late adolescence, and Daumier became familiarwith his collection of portraits, chosen for their diverse facial expressions.]In the late i 82os Daumier began to draw caricatures and portraits chargesof political figures.

Daumier's first caricatures, all political, were published in 1 830 in LaSilhouette and in La Caricature. In that same year of the July Revolution,Daumier's father went mad.4 Daumier's attacks against the governmentbecame the family's principal means of income.

His work almost immediately began appearing two to three times

weekly in Le Chariaari. Five of the most lastingly effective political carica-

tures of this period, Rue Transnonain, Gargantua, Lafayette, Liberti de la presse,

and Le Ventre legislatif were his, drawn while he was in his mid-twenties.Daumier produced nearly 4,000 lithographs and t,ooo wood engrav-

ings, setting the standard and scope for political and social satire in the

period 1 830 to 1 8'70, in both newspapers and illustrated books, includingthe novels of Balzac and Eugene Sue, as well as numbers of the Physiologie

of the Maison Aubert and chapters in L,es Frarefais peints par eux-mimes.Baudelaire wrote of Daumier as:

A man who every morning gives t he Paris population a laugh, who every daysupplies the need of public gaiety, and gives it something to feed on. Honestburgher, businessman, youngster, fine lady, one and all laugh, and often got heir way

the ungrateful creatures!

without looking at the signatures

The details of daily situations that Daumier drew were in the serviceof his social outlook, Republican, egalitarian and domestic. The strength

of his underlying ideology distinguished his work from that of Gavarni,Monnier and Constantin Guys.

Daumier's work, like that of Deburau, was often compared to Balzac's

La Comidie humaine, for the range and depth of its portrayal of Parisian

society. Balzac's title claims completeness: as La divina commedia was acomplete spiritual cosmology (in vernacular narrative), so La Comidie

1 34

t o] DAUMIER, ` Rue Transnonain', 1834. 0.135. Working-class families i n Lyonsmassacred by the police in retaliation for an incident on t heir street.

humaine was meant to be a complete social description." When contem-

poraries applied the same title to the oeuvre of Deburau or of Daumier,

completeness is what they meant.

The structure of the comidie humaine necessarily differed according to the

medium. Whereas Deburau created a working-class repertoire by way of

the single figure ofPierrot, an ` everyman', and Balzac developed hundreds

of named individuals through narration, Daumier presented discrete and

instantaneous situations. With few exceptions, the figures are anonymous;

not strongly individualized, but careful variations within clearly i om-

municated types. Daumier grasped the professional structure of the ex-

panding bourgeoisie - from the small shopkeeper and concierge, to thepolitician, lawyer and banker - and interwove its distinguishing traits

with those of a moral characterology drawing on the traditions of Lc Brun

and Lavater.

1 35

c ob `The View', Parnian Types, 1 839. 1 ). 595

The caricatural series, many of them planned by Philipon and Daumiertogether, are given broad and straightforward categories - Les BeauxYours de la vie, Les Baigneurs (The Public Baths), Les Bas bleus (The Blue-stockings), Alonomanes (Monomaniacs), Le.s Cens de justice. But Daumier'strue recurrent themes are moral: wishful thinking; role-playing; affecta-tion, sometimes pathetic and sometimes arrogant; wariness of culturalnovelty; ambition, resentment, envy, vanity; powerlessness and in-difference to the powerless: complacency and complaisance towards thestatus quo; embarrassment and obsequiousness; snobbery, self-righteous-ness, dissimulation, disingenuousness and hypocrisy. Daumier exploresthese themes between the upper and lower limits of the urban bourgeoisie.To quote from Baudelaire again

1 3fi

No one better t han he has known and l oved ( in the manner of the artists) thebourgeois ... this type at once so coin in onltlace and eccentric. Daumier haslived in close contact with him, has watched him day and night; he has learnedhis i ntimate secrets, has made the acquaintance of his wife and children,

t

knows the shape of his nose, the structure of his head, he kno%%s tlu , stn t ofspirit that gives life to the household, from top to bottom.

In comparison with Hogarth, perhaps the only social caricaturist ol'comparable stature and effect, Daumier's freedom from misanthropy orgeneralized disgust allows a much wider and more finely discriminatedrange of moral observation.

The bourgeoisie, Daumier's principal subject and audience, was notonly typically preoccupied with social ambition; it was a cla,<s c onnn,g t oterms with its own increased political power. Louis-Philippe's epithet, 'thebourgeois king', indicated not so much his personal style as his power base.The caricaturists and the bourgeois are adversaries: new forms of privilege,corruption, speculation, the betrayal of the Charter, the disappointmentof democratic hopes, were all associated with the alliance of the monarchy

and the bourgeoisie.The political dimension of Daumier's portrayal of' the bourgeoisie

becomes clear when his work in the Louis-Philippe years is viewed to-gether. Each individual caricature can often be seen as purely social, ;endmany of them are benign: domesticity, simple diversions, natural affec-tions, are shown with sympathy as well as irony. Daumier's political stanceemerges as he repeatedly presents situations of conflict and dissonance:between people's origins and their circumstances; between traditionalbourgeois values of family stability, caution and frugality, and new oppor-tunities for self-serving and display; between power of'ofice and power-lessness. These political implications gain in strength because his attack,in its cumulative effect, is not on individual moral turpitude, but on thesocial dislocations which engender pomposity and embarrassment as wellas cruelty, dishonesty and corruption.

By symptomatic moments, he mapped the fault-lines of his society, the

lines of shift and strain, Where Monnier presented the static manifesta-tions of the petit-bourgeois, Daumier succeeded in describing the dynamicof an entire class. This required a development of the caricaturist'sarmoury far beyond anything attempted before. If one leafs throughDaumier's earliest caricatures, which are derivative in manner and con-tent from his more experienced contemporaries, one sees how he developedan increasingly articulate style that could carry moral and political satireforward.

Daumier's early work was within the framework of physiognomic tradi-tion: there are even some indications that he was interested in currentphrenological theories. In 1832 Philipon commissioned him to make aseries of thirty-six sculpted portraits charges. There had been a successful

precedent in the late t 82os with the figurines of public figures by thesculptor Jean-Pierre Edouard Dantan - caricatures of Dumas, Hugo,

1 3 7

I,Iszt and others. , It is not clear what Philipon's intended use of the sculp-tures was - they were not cast in bronze until w~el1'after Daumier's death.9

One story relates that Daumier made- them st}rreptitiously in the galleryof the Legislature at a time when illustrators were not admitted. Their

exaggerated bumps and hollows may be simply a sculptor's natural form

of' caricature, or they may consciously respond to the phrenologicalfashion,'° These busts preceded the lithographic series, Celebritis de lacaricature, published in 1832 3, in which he used the same politicians as

his subject. The sculptural modelling is carried over to the prints in the

emphasis on the three-dimensional structure of the head and nose - the

use of light and dark planes, rather than line, to define form. Such anexample is D'Arg, the `portrait' of the Count d'Argout, who was the

censor for the July Monarchy, as well as Minister of Commerce, Public

Works, Fine Arts and the Interior."After 183, when legislation forbade caricature of political figures,

Daumier began to explore the caricature of social types and situations for

too "I he (:oalman', from a late ) fish-ccnturs Cries of the City

t t o DAI MtER, ' The Tailor: fie walks with his shoulders like a coat-hanger and hiselbows (,tit. Ilis clutlles arc of tit(- l atest cut, but often at odds with his boots and hat.He near]\ always has a very euphonic name such as Watenkermann or Pikprunman.'French Types, I 8'5, D.261

1 38

11 I DAUMIER, Harle, ` Old Fool',Deputy of Calais, 'Fossil of theCentre', Gobin No. 32, 1832

1 1 2 DAUMIER, ' D'Arg . . .'. Censorfor the July Monarchy, and ministerof commerce, public works, fine artsand the interior. D'Argout's emblemswere the scissors and his large nosewhich got into everything. 1 832. 1.48

the first time. In Chapter Three I discussed the first series in this mode,

the Types fran(ais - social types based on classification by professions,

accompanied by legends that were explicit in their reference to the rela-tionship of the types to the regime, whether as victim or as accomplice.

Daumier's emphasis began to shift from the shape of the head, charac-

teristic of the individual portrait bust, to bearing and play of features. The

Types franfais are still in the popular print tradition of the 'Cries of the

City', expressive but static; each stands alone with his attributes or imple-ments, and a minimal indication of city setting, indoor or outdoor. The

style is more graphic, less sculptural, than that of the portraits charges, but

still far from the calligraphic strength of his later work; shading is blendedrather than cross-hatched, and line follows form rather that) creating it.

In 1836 Le Charivari published the Galerie physionomique, also shared

between Daumier and Travis's, which is more directly related to Boilly's

Grimaces (1823-9). Here, single male figures are depicted, static and

tightly delineated, smoking, eating, drinking, bored, surprised, shocked,

frustrated, uncomfortable, dissatisfied; the pleasurable savouring of a

Bordeaux-Lafitte is contrasted with the reaction to a bad-tasting medi-

cine; the heavy features of the oyster-slurper are paired with the fine-

lipped connoisseur of ices. There is no longer any political reference in the

legends that accompany the prints.

1 39

1 1 3, 114 1)AUMIER. ` 011! MN wife's dead.' Phvsiognomic Gallery, 1836. 0.328.' t)vster Lover', Phvsiognomic Gallery, 1836, n.32q

i 1 ., I )~1 Mi1R.'Sss I' m a ns~sn '

N.-

I m

t m t he contrary.' SAet(he.s o/I;slnr„inns, tiss. 1 1 . 1 8j8. 1) 1 76

116 DAUMIER, ` Double Faces'. Gower legend: `Your case didn't have a chance/Youshould have told me that before.' Inverted legend: `You must plead, your case k excel l entiplead! plead!' No. s, 1 838. 0.540

In Double Faces (1838), Daumier showed two profiles on each page;

when the page is held upside-down the profiles read as the same twocharacters but in contrasting moods. This is the only instance where

Daumier explicitly distinguished physiognomies (innate expression of

character) from pathognomics (transient expression) by showing the same

face with two expressions.Daumier's mastery of the caricaturist's traditional vocabularN was

already established in 1 838. In Croquis d'expressions (1838- g), IOr tht first

time in his work, we clearly begin to see physiognomy in action, expression

occasioned by urban encounters and confrontations. When Daumier

presented two or more figures, their given facial features are ill marked

contrast to one another. Nose, chin and brow are articulated. Eyes are

rounded with surprise, compressed with anger or suspicion or drooped inboredom. Eyebrows have an important place in the expressive repertoire

of the face. Le Brun had already demonstrated that eyebrows could

express all the emotions. Daumier enriched their expressive repertory

further. Usually sharply angled, they can indicate attention, response,

surprise, scepticism, fear or unexpected pleasure. Often the angle doubles,

a circumflex which conveys the moment of their sudden rise. Full lips are

rare; they are encumbrances in the line of profile and reserved li)r some

affluent bourgeois, profligate and pouting. A mouth is more usually a thin

1 1 7 DAt-nnt.R, ' Yes, an attempt is being made to destitute this orphan, whom I will notcharacterize as a vomng orphan, since he is fifty-seven years old, but an orphanmmetheless . . . but 1 am confident, gentlemen, i n any case, for the eyes ofjustiee areconslantly open t o all such culpable manoeuvres!' Men of justire, 1 845. n.1347

single line, bill a line very specific and subtle in its expression - often seti n bon-chnn or deterinination. Sometimes boredom, like stupor and sleep,is slutwn by a l apse ofcontrol as in the open flaccid mouths of the sleepingj udges `presiding' on the bench. There is an occasional yawn and severalyells of rage.

Noses vary: sharp (critics, connoisseurs, and some politicians) ; long,

full and bulbous (gluttonous types); hawk-like (Prudhomme); and the

rarer stub found in workers more often than the bourgeoisie. Foreheadscome in all shapes: receding, predominant, short, evenly curved, in-

dented: the lower classes have shorter foreheads.

However, the play of expression takes precedence over given featuresi n the lithographs from the late 1 83os on. The fixed features are constantsaround which expressive lines play. It is the plane of the cheek between

eye, ear, mouth and jaw, particularly difficult to activate and articulate,

that predominates in Daumie is expressive heads. The three-quarter view

is the most common one in his drawings, allowing maximum exposum

this neglected and revealing area.The poor and modest worker, spare and lean, is typically shown wil

cheek bone casting its shadows on the hollows, in contrast with the wi

rounded jowl of the bourgeois. Ratapoil, sharp-edged and bony, has

hollow traced by the line of the movements of speech. By contrast, ti,worker into whose ear he whispers has a set cheek and downward turnip

fold, like the corners of his mouth, closed and sombre.

Series titles in the late t 83os and the early 1 84os remained in the gent

of physiognomies and typology. Croquis d'expressiow depicts bourgec,

pleasures, tribulations and aspirations. The emphasis is on social all

domestic situations. Daumier introduced the theme of bourgeois sel

image in scenes of people and their portraits, and painters, a version of tl ,

theme of the disparity between reality and wishful projection Ill.

appeared throughout his work.

118 DAUMIEE, ' Clod, what a nose you've made mc!' .fl,r/rhes ul lit~nr,,inn,. 1 838.

x.474

1 1 q

DA1 M1F H, ' (:ooc1 l onl! . .

Dazzling! .

. Ye gods! . . , superb . . . it speaks! .Around the ,ltudio,c, 1 862. 0.:;246

Spectators

1 2o DAUMIPR, Above left, ` Don't youthink my dear, a person must be abit touched to have her portraitdone like that?' The Public at theSalon, 1 852. 13.2298

1 21 DAUMIER, Above right, ` Amateurclassicists more and moreconvinced that art is lost in France.'The Public at the Salon, 1 852. D.2295

1 22 DAUMIER, ` Delighted to findthat he is exhibited, the original -seen here - escorts his spouse to theSalon and positions her in front ofhis likeness, to savour the opinionsof the public. Look, say some, it'sLin, the Chinese envoy. No, sayothers, don't you see it's anillustration in natural history? Agentleman in possession of acatalogue corrects them: it's theportrait of Mr. D. insurance broker.Well, with a mug like that, hedoesn't need to insure himself.Nobody's likely to steal him.Madame, the wife of the sitter, isextremely gratified.' Current Events,No. 52, 1841. D.918

t,}fi

1 2,J, 1 24

D.at mtea, Lefi, ' At t he Pot t y St Martin: By God ... that's a good scene ...t alk about a good seem . . , that's :t good scene.' The Best Day., of Life, 1 846. D.1171

Rt;t;ht, ' Two gentlemen anxious to be recognized as connoisseurs of the highest comedy.'the Parieiaro in 1 831, 1 882. 1.2227

I n t wo series published between 1839 and 1842, Types parisiens andEmotion., parisiennes, Daumier turned to more public confrontations. This

preoccupation can perhaps be seen as reflecting the conflict of classi nterests that eventually led to the Revolution of 1848. Here we have

scenes of personal injustice, confrontation and inconvenience, such as thepoor man in front of a well-stocked shop window, the poor and dishevelledl ather running into his foppish son who refuses to recognize him, and so

on. Onrvier et bowgc(m a 1 848') are two juxtaposed types: the worker looking

after his class interests 'avidly reading a newspaper while walking), thebourgeois looking after his individual interest (gazing at the food dis-played in a shop window).- In the Salon, there are representations of theclasses reacting diflcrently according to their interests: farmers appraisea painted cow, and painters examine a rival's work. The contrast of roles

and social positions became more acute: between employer and employee,

l awyer and client, bureaucrat and petitioner, landlord and tenant. Thesecontrasts are expressed primarily through bearing, the assertive versus thedeferential.

1 25 DAUMIER, ' For three months ttishighness always posed like that . . . .Whatever You Like, 1 848. o. 1 686

1 20 DAt NIIt I

I'll get > ott 1 )

were i n a ctill

lztiog

t t7, t ~2ti I,eJ), 11.st stir- k, ` A Dissatisfied Litigant', Alen 0/ Justice, 1 846. n.1362Rtkht,'II con w„old I),- good ermukh t o take my, case, I can assure you of my lifelongt;ratimd,~.' I'ltvm<n,mtiet uJ (lie Law C,,tw, 1 8.52. n.2;lwl

Underlying each series were some broad correlations of character withoccupation which existed already, especially in the theatrical tradition,

and which Daintier developed further, both socially and politically. Avariety of i ndividual physiognomies was played against a set of traitscharacteristic of the occupation as a whole. Lawyers were linked with the

attributes of arrogance, greed and cunning; bankers with gluttony;

doctors with self satisfaction and ambition; teachers with ineptitude;landlords with obduracy: and s(t on.

Datunier depicted lawyers

prosecutors, defending counsels and judgesmore frequently than other professional groups. They inherit many of

t he attributes of the politicians it) this phase of social caricature, They arealways arrogant, avaricious and cunning, Robert Macaire appears as al awyer twice between 1 836 and 1 838. The first major legal series, Les Gensde jusliec, was published i n 1 8.1,1 8, followed by Les Anocals el les plaideurs' Lawyers and Litigants , i n 1848 51, and Phy.sionomies du palais de justice( Physiognomies of the Law Court! in 1852.

1 29 DAUMIER, ` A trial lawyer visibly i nvpiI cd he ttu• dcepv,( cuncirtitm .

. t hat his

client will pay him well.' Alen of,7to(if,

o. i ,l.12

Daumier's attitude toward lawyers stemmed in part from their politico:

complicity: the number of attorneys allowed to practise in Paris \%o-

limited: every nomination had to have the sanction of the government

Disinterestedness under these conditions was rare. Les Gets% de justio t,

replete with exaggerated gestures as keys to insincerity and .self-seeking.

The cloaked advocate is leaving his client behind bars. His raised shoul-

ders, cocked head, stealthy glance and grimacing smile give him a lieavih

disingenuous, surreptitious air. He is contrasted with the clear-contoured

jailer and, more dramatically, with the prisoner, whose head alone is

visible, eyes wide open. Although we do not know the full situation, the

bearing and juxtaposition of the figures indicate clearly that the prisoner

has cause to worry, the lawyer has little to lose. fit another example, a

worker, descending the stairs, turns and points accusingly at the l awN- er

on the landing above. The lawyer, in gentleimtn's pose, turns his head,

but not his body, in the direction of the accuser; the accusation cleal'ly

perturbs him very little. He fingers his scarf, looks down his nose, thin

1 -1q

month pulled tight, jaw set with a sneering smugness, in contrast to theworker's irate, mobilized face open mouth, open eyes. Their respectivehearings reflect both class and feeling.

Daumier posed his l awyers i n court like actors on the stage, with ahighly stylized delivery and choreography of movements and gestures, butalso with a wealth of'physiognornic ` asides'. Many of the captions refer totit(, l awyer's pride in his oratotw: ' So, you've lost your case. At least you'vehad the privilege- of hearing my defence.' The gestures his characters useare pronounced, the accusing finger pointing more emphatically as thecase being presented becomes more questionable. Daumier also used the(-()trycntictnal accusing gesture of' die outstretched arm and pointed fingeri n his dcpictions of politicians, actors, bluestockings, Macaire and Prud-hctrnme. This gesture was also commonly found in contemporary theatricalillustrations, and i s still standard today in cartoons.

Daumier drew over ;1 hundred lithographs of the medical profession:doctm- s, surgeons, dentists, pharmacists, oculists, homocopaths and hypno-tist~. Political itnplicanmts were also characteristic of the medical pro-li , ssiott: a large percentage of tlnc Chamber of' Deputies were doctors. Of1,55o doctors in Paris in 1848, 3110 were decorated with the Legion ofHonour.'? As late as 1867 Datunier allegorically linked medicine andpolitics, showing members of the International Congress of Nfedieinearmed with hypodermics in reference to the threat to France by thearmament of Prussia.

Daunlier's doctors arc thinner, less prosperous and less gluttonous thanhis l awyers. They are more alert their eyes emphatically open - but lessself-assured: their stance is more t entative, without the aggressive, pom-pous paunch which is typical of ' his l awyers.

Most doctors, in fact, had meagre incomes which they frequentlyaugmented by selling medicines. Daumier caricatured doctors as pur-veyors ofquack rernedies and questionable treatments. Again, Macaire isdepicted offering free consultations and charging heavily for the medicineIte supplies. In one of'his earliest series, L'Imagination, done in collabora-tion with Grandville, Daumier presented a physician and his fantasies ofcures. The doctors are a less scheming lot than the lawyers but Daumierattacked their methods: their use whether in good faith or not) ofquackremedies, leeches, cures by pure water, dieting, 'clyster pumps' anddromedary ointment. His doctors arc solidly bourgeois by origin and con-viction: pedantic and i ndiflerent, motivated only by self i nterest.t4

Another form of political power i n the hands of the bourgeoisie wascontrol ol'land use and habitation: this was an age offeverish housing andland speculation. The series Loealaiw.s et proprielabes ( Tenants and Land-lords', published in Le Charirari 1 1 8.1.7-8 and 1854-6;, shows the powerwielded by t he landlord, and by his unofficial agent, the concierge. Pub-

1 50 t gu

DAUNntea,'The Physician: Why t he devil i, it (11,11

1 1 1 ,1

all n1\

pa Iienl-' . . .However much I treat them, 1 purge t hem. f drug; t hem . . . I dtni i nIhit'It,"Id it ;1t

all !' Rcenrs o/ The Imagination, 113,3,;. u.4o

=s

1 ,1 2

t at. 132 Lelt, DA( MIER, ' Speak to the Concierge.... But the problem. i

,. find theConcierge ... that's the difficulty.' Current Events, 1833. D.2361. Right, `Look, ournuptial chamher, Adelaide . . . t hese workers don't respect anything. They don't havet he cult of memory !' Parisian S'ketthes, 1 853. n.242g

lisped a few years after the reinstatement of the censorship laws byNapoleon III, this was a direct attack on the government, but one thatcould pass the censors.'5 Beginning in 185o Daumier exposed the effectsof the demolition and reconstruction of Paris- the displacement of people,t he inconvenience, the housing shortage and inflationary rents, the newspeed of traffic and the danger to the pedestrian. Neighbourhoods weredestroyed and landlords of new housing would not allow children or dogs.Daumier emphasized the destructive effect of such developments - andt he prosperity of the builders: in January 1 851 he showed Thiers and

Louis-Napoleon as demolition workers.The years immediately before t he Revolution of 1848 were in some

ways those of Daumier's greatest strength. its He had moved to the Ile St

Louis in the early 1 84os; i n 1846 he had married. He was the unchallengedl eader among the caricaturists

Grandville had died in 1845, Trayies hadstopped publishing in the n-tid 1 84os, Gavarni was turning away from hisOWtt success, NIonnier was writing and acting Prudhomme and was hardlydrawing. Cham the next caricaturist in line had just begun to publish in,Lc Charimri and as yet was openly Damnier's imitator,

It was in 1847 that Daumier first submitted a painting to the Salons

amark of his engagement as a painter. And at about the same time, certainelements emerged in his caricatures which derived frtnn t he painting o fearlier centuries, and which increased not only Iris graphic n,a,<tt rN I r uthis narrative and satirical range. 'I'Ite poses of the i ndividual l i gttrcsbecame more varied and dynamic (as if he had been making sets of figurestudies according to the practice of Leonardo, Pollaiuolo or Raphar l

andhe showed full mastery of the foreshortening oflimbs and face, \chiclt t heseposes entail. He seemed to make a special point of varying tltc angle atwhich each face in a scene is shown. When he set faces i n parallel it wasdeliberate, to convey mindless attention or haughty i ttattentitnt.

Even more impressive is his increasingly dramatic treatlttent ttl tltci nteractive stances of figures. Except wltcrc his print i tmal c l1arac t(Ts ; „,embedded in a crowd, there is never any doubt about wltcrc t he feet ofeach are planted; and the line ofinteraction between t wo figures is almostnever parallel with the picture plane (as it was in the earlier series) butsubtly or dramatically oblique. There is pictorial depth even aerialperspective - between them, though they may touch or i ntersect. The

1 33

DA nMIER, ' Paris at 6 p.m. : 1 don't believe t hat even at Limoge, ouc t nt ( ' ] l ot, r, u<many Limousins.' ( An i nhabitant of Limousin, it l so ;t stonc-ntastm,

Parmnn

/r „.1 834. 1).2585

1 :i 3

series Lo Femrne.t sociali vies (18491 is a set of virtuoso studies in the negativespace between I'tvo figures ~a concern carried on by Degas in many of hisi nterior domestic scenesl. The effect of this sculptural control of spatialrelations is i nformative; it adds, to the bearing and facial expression of thei ndividual figures, unnristakahle evidence of their feelings towards oneanother. As Baudelairc wrote: `All his figures stand firmly and are faith-fulls portrayed in rnot unlent . . . it is all the logic of the scholar trans-planted i nter a light and fleeting art, which competes with the mobility ofl ily ilscll.'''

Combined with Daunder's acute grasp of pose and gesture was his sensecrh ti ming, a sells(, wine lr was directly linked to It's developing mastery ofdraxtiing. Compare Daurnier's theatrical scenes with those appearing incontemporary theatrical magazines, such as Le Magasin thidtral. One oftltc artist's classic cltallcnf,Te.s has always been the capture of the,.

~.

sense ofr nM (111)(1111. Leonardo, f or instance, suggested that the artist should depictlit(- moment i mrnedi;ttcl\ before t he climax of'a movement, so as to indi-cate the action l eading III) t o that moment and to imply what will follow.Darinticr used t his dc\ i s c and added another in the very manner of his<Ir:t~sing: his rapidl\ dlam11 line and repeated contour indicate the figure

1 ;i .i

IY\t t. urrc.

Dr ;t wing. ' licit(1,

,1

1' w o XIc tt.' bfaisoit

1,

1 39

1 3,5 ComFdie-Fran~aisc, '/be hiwrcharnhaull, ( t umvd\b) ill. Emilc Augicr, drawings by M. Adricn Marie.Left, Mme Bernard to Ircr son: ` You .shall vase him!It is my wish; it is your duty'. Right, %IIIc Lctcllicrt o h1. & Mme Fourchambault: `I withdraw; but i ti s I who dismiss you!'

t •jfi DAUmtex,'Insurrcclion against bushauds i sproclaimed a sacred obligation.' Socialid It nmor,1 849,D.1918

without fixing it, and this conveys ;t sense crf mm ctnc°nl. We do ncx sec III( .

exact placement ofan arm in a lawyer's dramatic gesture, ett- the set oftlrcfeatures in a grimace; what we see is how it ccrrncs'nto hcing. TIreIV is all

aspect of bravura performance i n Datrrnicr's drauglrtsnrari,lrip. TIrccrayon stroke clearly conveys the vigorous and assured nrcrt'ort of' Dattrn-

ier's own hand, and it is this dynamic ' nfIected l i ne that gig cs mctvemcut

to the figures portrayed - the tensely concave back of a woman hurrying

i n tight shoes, or the admonitory arm gesture, cons t raiucd and inflated at

the same time, of Prudhommc instructing his small son.One of' Daumier's most constant devices was to juxtapose (,()n\

and spontaneous bearing and gesture. This contrast '.s c.trricd over tc,

scenes of social confrontation: composure and the sts -I'zal'crrr of Sell' i s n

function of class. The disparity ofsocial position,, the self,_(onsc'ousness crf

hierarchy is conveyed through juxtaposit'cnr crf poses ;t, ssc ha%c seen.

betwvcen lawyers and clients, landlords and tenan(,. ' I'll(- powerful adopt

conventional poses; the powerless do not conceal their apprchensicrn or

dismay. In the series Croquis haricien.s ; 1 87)E' , t here iz a dr:m'ng of t wo

janitors. One explicitly rehearses the pose of' authcrrii\

ICet t ogether.

weight forward, chest protruding, one hand t ucked I nto Iii, vest, t heother hand behind his back, head perched back, looking down his nose.

The other stands by with mixed f)emnSCmettl and sceptic'Sill.

1:j8, 139 DAOM1rR, Le ft, ` Oedipus at the Sphinx', Ancient History, 1 842. D.96]. Right,`Halt's me wile! Outrageous! While t he barber gives me a shave, she gives me theslip" Cu»lu,ga( Mauwr%, t 8;g. D.645

1 ;;; I)AI Mil R, `A queen preparing an especially demanding speech.' Dramatic Sketches,D.28gi

t ~~f)

1 40, 141

DAUMIER, Le/t, ' Scene in front of a ministcC, I n,nt offi< <

111)(1c] 111%

government.' Whatever You hike, 1849. D.1706. Ri{ht, ` Posed ;1s a 1 ueluber of III(

Agricultural Board in his count}'.' 7he Good Bolr,roic, 1 86,,.

t o

1 42 DAUMIER, ` Photography. A new procedure, n,ed t o emote graicfu1

Parisian Sketches, 1856. D.28o3

T he motif of the photography studio lends itself to the depiction of self-consciousness. In a scene ofcontrasting poses before the camera we witnesssome typical stylizations of self-image: `civilized man' turns his bodyhaughtily away from the camera, glancing back in its direction, affectingbare acknowledgment, but tense and ready for quick adjustments. Byc olltr:rst, ' natural man' sits face forward, stable, with feet parallel, neithersubtle nor seductive. Daumier contrasted the basic structure of their poses

the spiral and the block.The IFlenlc of posing before a mirror was used by Daumier to show how

a person confronts his c nsn i mage, and to play with the disparity betweent he ( %yo: sometimes this shokAs the effort of simulating decorum, as withill( , politician rehearsing his bony and smile; sometimes the face reveals

J

C_ _ aiid

i 1-m

_

'

1_l

A

1tit(, state AA'1So iCu!oiCu W

_11: r111_1 Ca ii11lC1lQillly 1lJCl tl.

, aJ Wllll LIIC WUIIIaII

l ooking coyly in the mirror.Hypocrisy was a politically fruitful motif for Daumier. He used two

basic strategies: explicit situations where the true intention is seen inaction, for instance, Louis-Philippe and Robert Macaire embracing whilepicking each other's pockets, or the lawyer and defendant, or the con-man

t og DACMIER, ' smiling practicebefore meeting the electorate.' CurrentErenzs, 1 869. u.37o6

and his victim. More subtly, he juxtaposed rhetorical gc."turc with atheatrical `aside', whether of face or bearing, drat reveals tit( , real i nten-tion. Apres vouspresents two generals before a door marked `Disarmament'.Each invites the other to be the first to enter: but the cxprcstion c , I litra-dicts the official meaning - the exaggerated gesture of delCrelu c andobsequious smiles convey mistrust.

It is not simply a question of traditional exaggeration used in order toachieve dramatic focus, but of disjunctive exaggeration used to revealconflict or dissonance. For instance, a fice attempts :1 noble expressionbut all the features are gross. This is true of Louis-Philippe alld most of OW

portraits charges, particularly from Les Rep-esculant.+ r'f:rl-lerrtr"+ i 8_18 cl .Where there are mixed signals of nobility and ignobility dec wpit, pot-bellied, middle-aged actors playing noble parts ill cl:issic-:tl Isla~, , olte

is simply led to regard the nobility as empty.Daumier used exaggerated theatrical pose to satirize the artificiality of

an arcane style in a theatre unresponsive to contemporary i calitic.s. Healso used canonical theatrical gesture-- in scenes outside tit, , dicall-c tosignify artifice and affectation. He employed the formal language of

1 44, 145 DAUMIER, Left, ` The promenade of an influential critic.' Sketches at the Salw7,1 865. D.3448. Right, ` Ah, my dear sir, allow me to say that this year you hax -c cxhibiied,quite simply, a masterpiece.' Sketches at the Salon, 1 865. n.3441

t FSB(rUe'

1 60

1 46 Li.. BRUN, Oxen. Le Brun likens them to thei nhabitants of the parish of Saint-Pierre-aux-Bocul ,9.

t oy DAVmase, `Interior ofa bus. Between a

drunk and a butcher.' Parisian Types, 1 839.

1 1 - 5 66

presentation, declamation and reaction to underline pretentious, arrogantand dishonest characters. And almost always he counterpointed thestandard mannerism with some revealing unselfconscious move orgrimace.

Obviously, however, not all formalized dramatic gestures imply falseappearances. Daumier used certain formal poses and movements asi ndicators her an immediately recognizable, easily read emotion or reac-tion. One of the most common poses used by men and women of all classesindicates surprise or fright: the figure `taken aback', legs apart, knees bent,c}test and head thrust forward, arms bent upward at the elbow, handsopen. I . his pose was used by painters, caricaturists, actors and mimes. Agesture from antiquity through post-Renaissance theatrical prints andpainting, it persists up to contemporary film animation.

Le Brun's schemata

recombined and updated - underlay some ofDaumier's characterizations." The pose and expression of esteem andveneration, shoulders raised, knees bent, body inclined forward, was usedi n an exaggerated f orth by Daumier for obsequious members of the court

LESCHATS-HUANTSt .}8 LF: BR( N, O\11,, l it, ett\iou,pointed uose and I)iu( lied mouth, i< l i k,sinistel' o\d

t qg DAUNHER,',\Ir Prudhomme, PhilaudIt is precisely because I am philanthropicconsider it rny duty not to give cncourag4mendicancy. Man must supply all his nevhis l abour. Have I e\ er heen ,seen t o nteniCnrrenl Events, t 8 iii. 11.2828

in La Cour du Roi Petaud (t 832). Daumier's visitors responding to unfamiliarpainting at the Salon drew on Le Brun's illustration of aversion, combinedwith the attributes of surprise. Anger was expressed in the same ways inthe seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries: the forehead is creased, thenostrils dilated, the corners of the mouth turned down. Daumier added acaricatural touch - the hair stands on end.

Physiognomic comparisons of animals and humans codified by Le Brunwere also used by Daumier. The owl, which Le Brun associated withmisers, and with deceit and concealment, is clearly present in thefeatures of Prudhomme refusing to give alms. Daumier's faces of clergyand government officials are directly compared with Le Brun's `cheats,tricksters, and predators', their features based on the crow. Clergy werealso depicted by Daumier as a cross between Le Brun's donkey (boorish)and his ram (stupid). Butchers resemble oxen. And the stone-marten,noted by Le Brun for its cunning and greed, was used by Daumier todepict the avaricious.'9 In addition, Daumier added new analogies to hisbestiary -- politicians as ravenous beetles.

t ')o

f):X( %Itt R. "I'll e Parisians arc i ncreasingly coming to appreciate the advantages ofntacadainizcd roads. 0errnt

t t?5,I. 1,.2586

I n the first major article on Daumier, published in 18'78, Duranty

referred to the repertory of fixed types and traits available to artists and

pointed out that Daumier provided a true encyclopedia of types: `thescientific or instinctive infallibility [of expression], a certitude in the

expression of movement, an inexhaustible truth in the appearance of his

figures' . Z°

Of all Daumier's t ypes, t he spectator is the most developed and ex-

pressive. The more skilled the caricaturist, the more carefully the

i ndividual spectator is scrutinized. The caricaturist's art, like that of themime, consists in finding tile salient clues of' character and points of

exaggeration that trigger a quick and accurate reading. The caricaturedspectator, like the mime. indicates what is going on around him by hisgestures and expressions of' reaction. The spectator motif has a double

aspect: it comprises two contrasted but intimately related types. One isthe isolated and conscious observer, thefldneur, who is an analogue of the

to:, il a(tivity.

"Xiexandre called Daumier `the spectator parcxcellcttcc'.) The Niter i s t he undiscriminating (or at any rate, undis-

crinlinated I ntetrtber of , all audience or a crowd of'bystanders, the passivegaper, the badaud. There arc , political implications in underlining citizens'

acceptance of their role as passive observers of'an empire's reconstruction.

1 6 ,2

Hardly fifty years after the storming of the Bastille, Balzac r cp()rucd i ttFerragus that `in Paris everything is a spectacle: no ()titer people i n theworld have had such voracious eves'.

Daumier developed the motif of the spectator kith greater variety andintensity than any other caricaturist. He depicted spectator, over 23otimes (this represented 5 per cent of his graphic work and to per cent of

his paintings). He first introduced the spectacle its a subject in his repertoryof social caricature after the censorship laws of' 1835: nut only theatre

audiences and spectators at the Salon, but people on t he street,. turning

the slightest event into a spectacle. A typology ol'audiences, c,I badauds,

becomes in the censorship years a staple of'the caricaturists' repertoire.Between 1835 and 1851, Daumier depicted spectators nearly Set times.

The subject became still more frenttent bet::-ce:: 1 852 at1d 1 868, when

Paris was undergoing reconstruction: the upheaval of the city is shownthrough the spectators making their way across freshly macadamized

streets or dodging past workers carrying beams. We also see the effect ofthe new scale and grandeur of the city: women strolling in wide crinolines

1 51 DAUMIER, ` These are no longer women, t hese arc hallooirv.' Currrrrl Ftvnts. 1 855-D.2627

1 .52. 1 .53

DAUMIER, Lell, ' For the seventh ti me, will you give me my seat? ... if not . ,` If not, what?' `It not. I'll be obliged to go and that would displease me very much.'Diff/(nlt ttomenis ill /,ile, 1 8fi,l, ') . 3 2 74. Right, ` More Venusses this year . . . alwaysVenu-es! . . . as it there were inly women who look like that! . . '. Sketches at the Salon1 865. 1. 3440

,

1 .51 D,si MIVR. ` Physiognomies (rl ill(' spectators at the Porte St Martin during apctii>rtuala t , of Richard 111.' (.'nrre»t hrerrt~, 1 852. 1.22'74

1 6.1

down broad boulevards -- they are part of the spectacle of Paris parading`to see and be seen'. This was the period of the great World Fairs, the

Expositions Universelles of 1855 and 1862. Daumier drew several series

on the fairs, concentrating on the responses of the visitors.In this same period, Daumier attended the theatre frequently.- The

diversity and detail of his theatre audience, and the interactions between

them, reflect his close attention to spectator as spectacle. They are dis-tinguished by the posture and gesture of his figures which vivifies rather

than typifies. In Physionomies de spectateurs de la Porte Saint Martin pendant

une representation de Richard III of 1852, he focused on four variations of

standard bourgeois poses but with distinctive facial expressions.

The individuation of the spectator is expressed in the conflict , between

spectators. In the series Croquis pris au t)Vdtre (186¢), Daumier conveyed a

conflict of will between husband and wife through their gestures: the

woman pointing to the stage with her husband determined to stalk out -but with his torso turned, responding to his wife's tug. In another theatre

audience, one man weeps and the other laughs at him. A man challengesan interloper in his seat.

The bourgeois audience was Daumier's own, demanding in its passivity.

It was in this period, the late i 85os and early 1 86os, that Daumier's

popularity was beginning to wane. Daumier captured the spectators'confusion and conservatism at the Salon, their boredom and bewilder-ment at the artifacts of progress at the Exposition Universelle. He depictedthe Salon spectator with less sympathy than his bourgeois at their

domestic pursuits: there is no one in these scenes at the Salon with whomDaumier identified.- 2 He showed people critical and uncomprehending

before the work of Courbet and Manet, women shocked by realist nudes,men strutting proudly before their own portraits. Daumier himself had

submitted his paintings to the Salons, and experienced rclectilm and

neglect.In 1860, after thirty years of constant employment, Daumier was

dropped from Le Charivari. Baudelaire wrote: `Think of Daumier! free,

kicked out of the doors of Charivari i n the midst of the month and with

only a half-month's pay ... and with no other occupation than paint-

i ng.'z3 Philippe Burty described Daumier in 1862 as in a 'cruel state ofprivation ... having no longer either lithographs or woodcuts to (to. Tile

_._uevvspapcrs "vvon't hava anyuliug l~ Vr1 I ull1 ally I ol1Kl'1, tal(((l/1•'QIl Clld IIUt

renew his contract. Le Monde illustr~ won't accept his series: his wood

engravings, I hear from Champfleury, make subscribers drop off '34

The most likely reason for Daumier's dismissal was a shift in editorial

staff at Le Charivari, Philipon had moved from there to Le journal amwant.

There is no further documentation on why Daumier's readers lost interest,

if they had, or whether this was the real reason for Le C,Ylaiirari's decision.

1 65

Daumier's repetitiveness and lack of verve in some prints of the 1 850s,and the competition of Cliam's trtorc light-hearted weekly report with itsmultiple images, may have contributed to Daumier's eclipse.

I n 1861, Daumier published nit new work. Since 1853, he had spenthis summers in Valmondois, ( went\-three miles from Paris. Friends of his()wit generation, Romantic landscape painters - Corot, Daubigny andRousseau lived and w, cn kcd nearby at Barbizon; and during this periodof unemployment he spcttt his time with oils and watercolours. In 1862,it(, was commissioned I >v ( It( , weekly illustrated paper Le Boulevard (editedby the caricaturist and photographer Etienne Carjat). Eleven of thet welve lithographs for Le Boulevard i n 1862 and 1863 appeared under thetitle.Sour rrrirc d'arlislr-s

t he last was a portrait charge). They are very diversei n theme and treatment itntl\ one, Paysagistesau travail, ` Landscapists atWork', has painters as its t herrtel but among them are some of his finestscenes. They were executed tinder less immediate pressure than his dailywork for Le Charivari: t heir composition is more careful, without any lossof dircctnessorverve , . . \adart'lrvanllapholographiealahauteurdel'art ( NadarElevating Photography tit the Level ofArt), of 1 862, is the best-known andmost spectacular example. Several

one post-Haussmann street scene inparticular

are tightly packed with figures and complex in composition.All show gradations oh tone w_Itich tT ,. ;; v be associated with his concentra-tion on painting in this period. There are also cross-overs of motif: thefigure of the child in the painting Femme et enfanl sur un Pont (1845-8),DFpart pour l Wole (18521, and again in the repeated theme of La Laveuse( The Laundress) and LeT'wdeau ('i'I w Burden) from 1852 to 1 863, appearsi n the lithograph Le Dimanrhe aujardin des plantes (Sunday at the Zoo). ADon Quixote illustration in the Le Boulevard series is almost unchangedfrom two oil sketches around 1858. This lithograph also used, as itsdramatic focus, a technique of scraping the greasy crayon off the stone,which introduced a new tonal element. This use of patches of varied tonettr build up forms is a partial r'cvcrsion to the style of his earlier portraitscharters but now it is painterly as well as sculptural.25

Seven of his watercolours of tllc 1 8tios depicted l awyers and courtroomscenes, the third-class carriage and other train scenes, street performers,actors on the stage and print collectors. Daumier's emergence as a genrepailrter and watercolourist coincided with the first exhibited works ofJlanet, Monet and Degas.

I n

T kGyl

l „ l,haJir'Qi .'

. ct..11

"H, it cl

Dauntier a new contract and its readerswere informed:

1 6 6

We anntntnce with saiisf,ciitnt t o all our subscribers that our old colleagueDaunticr who f or t hree \ears had giycn up lithography- to dedicate himselfexclusively to painting, liar ciccided t o t ake up the crayon again which he hadw i cldcd with such success. We present t oday a first plate of Daumier, and

1,55 DAUMIER, ` The New Paris: How pleasant it i s tix- bush pr-plc u(m t hat ilrrvbroadened the routes ofcommunication.' drlisls' S'rnrvenirs, 1 1361. D.;;2ta

from this day on, we will pul)lish, every morning, six or eight lithographs oft his draftsman who has the talent of making even his caricatures true worksof art.'fi

From 1863 to 186(' Daumier returned to familiar subjects, Croquisparisiens, Tvpe.s el phvsiononties. Croquis pris au Salon, Les Bons Bourgeois andan occasional lawyer; and those subjects that the Impressionists were justbeginning to adopt : c afc scenes, theatre audiences and spectators at large.Some of these lithographs were published in Le journal amusant and the1'rld 3ownal1)our rite, both publications of the Maison Aubert.17

111 1 866 censorship laws were' lifted in an optimistic gesture on the partof' Napoleon 111, confident of his public support. International conflicthad taken centre stage. And for all the complaints over the inconvenienceand great expense of the reconstruction of Paris, internal politics were notunder excessive attack. Napoleon had made France into a major militarypower, entering into wars with almost every major power in Europeexcept England. The military engagement of France with Italy, Russia,Austria, Prussia and Turkey unsettled the European balance of power.

Daumier depicted the growth of Italy and the threat of Prussia, andthe attempt to ally with unreliable countries. But above all, his concernwas with the threat to peace: he showed Europe personified balanced onthe tip of a bayonette and, two variations, the globe balanced on the tipsof bayonettes, and the figure of Europe trying to balance on a globe.

Issues of'diplotnacy and the threat of'war now became Daumier's pre-

valent themes. With the shift from national to international politics,Daumier's caricature became more symbolic. He invented and usedsymbolic figures: Peace as an emaciated figure, Prussia as an obesewoman with a military hat, Diplomacy as an old hag in eighteenth-centurv costume. France as Prometheus with a vulture picking at its liver.These figures, in topical references, were set against evocative but un-specific landscapes of devastation, reminiscent of Goya's Caprichos andblack paintings, known in France through engravings. ( His The Disasters

of War were not published until 1863.) This new simplicity of background,together with the galvanizing symbolic figures, made Daumier's latepolitical caricature enduring in its reference.

' The defeat of'Napolcon I II in 1 87o and the moral bankruptcy of Franceis rnn%-PVer1 i n !.a Toile (The Curtain) : the audience has called for thecurtain to be pulled down it is marked `Theatre of politics'. On the faceof it, this was the end of a long struggle that Daumier had championedall his life: Monarchy was dead; but what replaced it was not yet arepublic such as Daumier had fought for. His caricatures at this time areadmonitory: 'If the workers fight among themselves, how shall the house

he built?' It was not until 1 877 that the republic became a viable reality.

1 6 8

1 56 158 DAUMIER, Right,' European Equilibrium',Current Events, 1 857.n.3566Below left, ' The UniversalExhibition. The Exhibition:"Forgive me if I don't offeryou a chair, but youunderstand .

"; Peace:"Don't bother, I amused to not being seated".'Current Events, 1 867. n.3593Below right, 'If the workersfight among themselves,how shall the house bebuilt?' Current Events, 1 872.

3925

i 5g, i tio L~Jt, DAOn11ea, ' Sllc tlefinitcle has a stonger voice.' 1 869. D.3717. Right, ` Le(:harm ari. Forced ill draw a i wti vicw 11f t he site where t he Temple of Peace stood.'%;ullrw isrrra,, 1 86]. o.;j61o

I n 1 867, twelve years before his death, Daumier introduced a lastemblematic type (after his Macaire, Ratapoil and Monnier's Prud-homme). He turned from his society and to himself as caricaturist in hisportrayal of the jester. As early its 1 833 Daumier had identified the jesterwith La Caricature and Lt, Charirari caricaturists, but now the figure becamel ess (,]fill and more human. Dauntier had earlier presented types with%" llotn Itc alight have i dctltified, but never with such explicit self-reference.Don Quixote, Daumier's ftvourite book, was a frequent subject in hispainting, but did not appear in his caricature. Don Quixote who noblymisapplied moral categories was a recurrent tragic-ironic self-image forRomantics in a bourgeois society.

Tlre,jcster, on the other hand, is explicitly the caricaturist: he seems tohave Daumier's nose and Don Quixote's beard. With crayon-holder asiii., ~N-capon ihe confronts, on Daumier's behalf, the politicians, clergy,disarmament, universal suffrage and reactionaries. From 1867 to 1872,Daumier drew t he . j ester repeatedly. 21

Daumier's,jester is in the same profession as the street performer, theclowns and saltimbanques that he drew and painted repeatedly from the1 85os t o the last years of his life. 2 9 But the jester of the lithographs keepsIII) his proli°ssional high spirits: he actively comments, records, and

1 70

opposes, while the sallimbanque.s of Dauumier's paintings and vaatercolouisare consistently dejected and passive. The street performers

hadbeen

subject to the same censorship laws as the caricaturists their skits werefull of political reference. Daumier depicted the street clowns with thesame three-cornered hat, the fool's cap, of the jester. In the most patheticimages they are seen moving from place to place in the city - perhaps anecho of Daumier's own childhood.

The clown or jester as the image of t he artist outside society appealsalso in the writings of De Mussel, Champflcury and De Banville.t° Thecaricaturists who in 1 83o had been influential in turning public opinionagainst the monarchists, had realized over the next thirty t o Itsrty \-cansthe limits of their political i nfluence_ 'I'll(' J ester ;l9 a selft m :1"(' i.•, tl:jtt :;f .the critic at large who lives by his wits and call criticize only as l ong as heis entertaining.

We have assigned an emblematic self-image t o tllrce of our principalcaricaturists -Gavarni's Vireloque, Monnier's Prildhonlnic and Daunl-ier's jester. In polar contrast with Prudhomnic, ;t plumb di.,llo llr 11111 anda quintessential bourgeois, the jester is outside society, l carl, perccptiyeand a conscious contender. Prudhomme gradually sv-allowed up Moll-- ; --r; Daumier's set: irnag ~c corer •ed at tlic cm! ofhis career, and t heJ'esteris not his incubus but his comrade-in-arms.

In 1872 Daumier's eyesight began to fail. He retired f- oni Paris toValmondois and he drew little after that.

A major exhibition of Daumier's work was organized I 1y his friends in1 878, sponsored by Hugo, the prominent novelist; Niadar, ill(- photo-grapher; Champffeury, the old champion of Realism; Dauhigny, tiltRomantic Barbizon landscape painter; and marry others. altogether d.I

Oils,1 39 watereolours and drawings, and slime sculpture and lithographs

were shown at the Galerie Durand-Rucl, tlw splnuln- of till ' I t rlpi cssic l nist'exhibitions. The critics enthusiastically praised Daunlicr's \\'()I k, t houghlittle was sold. Only a few months later, in February 1 879. I)atlntierdied;and the local curate of Valmondois refused him church burial because of'his politics.

The obituaries in the Paris newspapers reflected the public apprecia-tion of his caricatures. Le Monde illuslrP, 22 Fcln11at'y 1 879, ),%rote

The collection of his works eonctitowc -W of tt;_

„;; „„„

satires of our contemporary society. He found t he means to still] Ill) i n a 1 ,( . % N

decisive traits the dominant character of ' a physiognomy; h(, brought out theineffaceable signs of ridiculousness and vice.... A profound observer, hepresented the men of his time with a particular manner, a firnuiess of ex-pression. His bourgeois were living beings portrayed from life froin top tobottom, with their personal manner of dressing, of holding themselves, ofwalking and of looking.

The intersection of pictorial codes, revealing each character's nature,nurture, ambition and immediate feeling constitutes the generativestrength of Daumier'ss art; he developed the language of physiognomy,bearing and gesture, to a new l evel at which it could express a comidiehumaine adequate to an evolving political and social state.

Daumier's one recorded adage was: `One must be of one's time.' For theIinprcssionis(/Real ist painters of the next generation, Daumier's workwas not only a brilliant journalistic record of modern Paris, it was aliberating example 'which they i ncorporated into their advanced pro-gramme: a .style at one witli its subject, and a rich source of naturalisticthemes, improvisatory technique and audacious framing:

Duranty's description in La ,Voui ,elle Peinture (1876) of the task ofmodern drawing could have been based on Daumier as much as onDegas: it is Degas' explicit programme but it describes Daumier's prac-tice." Duranty wrote:

What we need is t}tc particular note of the modern individual, in his clothing,in (lie midst of his social habits, at home or in the street.

. . . By means of a back, we want a temperament, an age, a social condition_to be revealed; through a pair of hands, we should be able to express amagistrate or a tradesman; 13y a gesture, a whole series of feelings. A physiog-nomy will tell us that this fellow is certainly an orderly, dry, meticulous man,whereas that one is carelessness and disorderliness itself. An attitude will tellus this person is going to a business meeting, whereas that one is returningfroth a l ove tryst. A man opens a door; he enters; that is enough; we see that he haslost his daughter. Hands that are kept in pockets can be eloquent. The pencilwill be steeped in the marrow of life. We will no longer see mere outlinesmeasured with a compass, but animated, expressive forms, logically deducedfrom one another . . .

The idea, the first idea, 'c-as to take away the partition separating the studiofrom everyday life ...

It is the study of how morals reflect on physiognomies and on costume. Theobservation of a man's i ntimacy with his dwelling, of the special character-istics which his profession imposes on him, the gestures which it induces himt o make, points of view from which lie shows himself most clearly.3'

Cltampfleury dedicated Le.s E.rcentrlques to Daumier in 1 852 with thesewords:

1 7 2

You must often have smiled at the difficulty felt by the novelist who tries tosketch a physiognomy in words you who in a few strokes of the pencil giveeternal life to those beings whom future historians will consult with delight inorder to learn what the bourgeois exterior of our century looked like.33

1 61 DAUMIEt2, `To think that with the stone from all these pedestals one could build agood dozen primary schools,' 1867. o.g6oo