Daumier and Caricature

1876 Words8 Pages
History of Art and Architecture IV
Kim Torbey
201102809
Paper
Spring 2013

Daumier and Caricature

"Daumier lacked one gift: imagination." This is how Daumier is described by Philipon, his publisher, right after they stopped working together in September 1861. Honore Daumier, French artist of the 19th century, born in a middle-class family of Marseille, is well-known mostly for his political lithographs. All in all in his life, he produced around four thousand lithographs but he also was the author of hundreds of drawings and paintings and wood engravings. He is said to have changed the whole perception of caricature art and his influence is uncontested. If this is the case, how is it possible to put forward the supposition that he lacked a key ingredient in all forms of artistic activity: imagination? By analyzing some of his caricatures throughout his life, we will try to decide if he expressed creativity in all the forms of his art. He used mainly lithography as a medium, but some may argue that his exploration of it wasn't pushed enough. His style will also be a good indicator of imagination, as well as the themes he tackled and how inventive he could be about the characters depicted. Finally, we will question how he could attain such a level of universality if he was not creative enough.

The exploration of his all-time favorite medium is a good indicator of how imaginative he could be. Lithography is a printing technique based on water, using a hydrophobic substance and a hydrophilic one. During Daumier's time, lithography could only be achieved in black and white. Therefore, Daumier explored this technique by trying to manipulate the grey-scale from very dark tints to extremely white ones, such as in the Les Bas Bleus (The Bluestockings) lithograph in 1844. This gives an effect of "light and atmosphere" that characterized a lot of his scenes. In
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