Honoré Daumier

MICHELANGELO OF CARICATURE

Honore Daumier worked incessantly revealing the heart of the French people for the world to see in a monumental body of work produced over 58 years. Honoré Daumier, the “Michelangelo of Caricature”, was a beloved caricaturist, but an unrequited painter. Today he is considered a master of lithographic caricature, French Realist painting and comic sculpture. He produced more than 4,000 lithographs, 1000 wood engravings, 500 paintings, 1000 drawings, and 100 sculptures in a career that is difficult to grasp in light reading. Poverty drove him to produce. Love of people and Republican values inspired him. He spent much time on his own, drawing and painting, not needing constant attention. He did need to observe people in a variety of situations. This led him to linger at places all over Paris where he would catch Parisians in the act of being human and record their activities, in his memory, to later bring to life in the solitude of his studio overlooking the Seine River. Daumier would discuss people, politics and painting with his contemporaries, including Baudelaire, Balzac, Hugo and his more everyday coworkers and friends. The artist enjoyed a song, a bit of brandy and good conversation. Honoré Daumier wanted to do something great with oil and canvas but would not achieve recognition for that in his lifetime. As he neared the end of life, his vision left him and he lived in poverty somewhat relieved by the kindness of friends. He died never realizing his greatest dream, but in fact having achieved greatness.

Source: DonkeyHotey

HONORÉ DAUMIER - THE RELUCTANT MASTER OF CARICATURE (PART 1)

Honoré-Victorin Daumier (French: [%C9%94n%C9%94%CA%81e domje]; February 26, 1808 – February 10, 1879) was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century.

Daumier produced more than 500 paintings, 4000 lithographs, 1000 wood engravings, 1000 drawings and 100 sculptures. A prolific draughtsman, he was perhaps best known for his caricatures of political figures and satires on the behavior of his countrymen, although posthumously the value of his painting has also been recognized.

Daumier was born in Marseille to Jean-Baptiste Louis Daumier and Cécile Catherine Philippe. His father Jean-Baptiste was a glazier whose literary aspirations led him to move to Paris in 1814, seeking to be published as a poet.[2] In 1816, the young Daumier and his mother followed Jean-Baptiste to Paris. Daumier showed in his youth an irresistible inclination towards the artistic profession, which his father vainly tried to check by placing him first with a huissier, for whom he was employed as an errand boy, and later, with a bookseller. In 1822, he became protégé to Alexandre Lenoir, a friend of Daumier's father who was an artist and archaeologist. The following year Daumier entered the Académie Suisse. He also worked for a lithographer and publisher named Belliard, and made his first attempts at lithography.

Having mastered the techniques of lithography, Daumier began his artistic career by producing plates for music publishers, and illustrations for advertisements. This was followed by anonymous work for publishers, in which he emulated the style of Charlet and displayed considerable enthusiasm for the Napoleonic legend. After the revolution of 1830 he created art which expressed his political beliefs. Daumier was almost blind by 1873.

,........Daumier was not only a prolific lithographer, draftsman and painter, but he also produced a notable number of sculptures in unbaked clay. In order to save these rare specimens from destruction, some of these busts were reproduced first in plaster. Bronze sculptures were posthumously produced from the plaster. The major 20th-century foundries were F. Barbedienne Barbedienne, Rudier [fr], Siot-Decauville [fr] and Foundry Valsuani [fr].

Eventually Daumier produced between 36 busts of French members of Parliament in unbaked clay. The foundries involved from 1927 on to produce a bronze edition were Barbedienne in an edition of 25 & 30 casts and Valsuani with three special casts based on the previous plaster castings from the gallery Sagot - Le Garrec clay collection. These bronze busts are all posthumous, based on the original, but frequently restored unbaked clay sculptures. The clay in its restored version can be seen at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

From the early 1950s on, some baked clay 'Figurines' appeared, most of them belonging to the Gobin collection in Paris. It was Gobin who decided to have a bronze cast done by Valsuani in an edition of 30 each. Again, they were posthumous and there is no proof, in contrast to the busts mentioned above, that these terra cotta figurines really were done by Daumier himself. The American school (J.Wasserman from the Fogg-Harvard Museum) doubts their authenticity, while the French school, especially Gobin, Lecomte, and Le Garrec and Cherpin, all somehow involved in the marketing of the bronze editions, are sure of their Daumier origin.[citation needed] The Daumier Register (the international center of Daumier research) as well as the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC would consider the figurines as 'in the manner of Daumier' or even 'by an imitator of Daumier' (NGA)

There can be no doubt about the authenticity of Daumier's Ratapoil and his Emigrants. The self-portrait in bronze as well as the bust of Louis XIV have been frequently debated over the last 100 years, but the general tenor is to accept them as originals by Daumier.[citation needed]

Daumier created many figurines that he subsequently used as models for his paintings. One of Daumier's most well-known figurines, titled The Heavy Burden, features a woman and her child. The woman is carrying something, possibly a large bag; the figurine is about 14 inches tall. Oliver W. Larkin states that "One sees in the clay the mark of Daumier's swift fingers as he nudged the skirt into windblown folds and used a knife blade or the end of a brush handle to define the clasped arms and the wrinkles of the cloth over the breast. In oil, he could only approximate this small masterpiece most successfully in two canvases were once owned by Arsene Alexandre."

Daumier made several paintings of The Heavy Burden. The woman and her child look like they are being pushed by the wind, and Daumier used this as a metaphor of the greater forces they were actually fighting against. The greater forces that Daumier wanted to show that they were trying to fight were the Revolution, the government, and poverty.[citation needed] The woman and her child in the painting are outlined by a very dark shadow..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier