Honore Daumier

Honoré-Victorin Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century.

I found out that  Daumier joined a newspaper  called Le Caricature.  It would show two or three lithographs usually in the form of political caricatures. I really liked this one:

I found out The name 'Gargantua' comes from a 16th century series of novels, which tells of the adventures of two giants, 'Gargantua' and his son 'Pantagruel'. 

I found out the man in this is King Louis-Philippe, obviously he is sitting on a chair, which is actually a giant commode, It is very unflattering and he is obviously made him look very unappealing on purpose, the board leading to his mouth shows people ( assuming tax payers) carrying bags of money and paring them down his throat, to show greed and the way he wastes his subjects hard earned money. 

In the bottom right of the print i can see a man dressed in rags and a woman holding her baby. The way they are depicted, obviously very poor and they are there to show that the poor people are giving the rich there money to consume and waste! I also noticed that next to the chair are men grabbing falling coins from the kings mouth, and under the chair i can see sheets of paper. I am not sure what this means? maybe the few people who have a better status than the poor getting papers for land or more privileged things? i noticed that they are also wearing nicer clothing .

I think this is very interesting! and i have seen something like this before in news papers, modern ones i mean. It really interests me! they are very clever and although quite funny address serious issues at the time! 

I like that it was in a news paper, that way the 'everyday man' can view it! its telling a story almost or addressing an issue, with one image! It makes me think about how we do this now and how effective it is! 

now we dont really read papers, or maybe in my generation and future generations, they dont hold as much of an importance as they once did! now artsits find a way to bring it to our attention with the internet or like the work of banksy, on the streets we walk!He makes comments of social media but also political issues.

Or even the work of less known Luis Quiles

They all address issues in a single image, it makes me think what kind of a reaction these got at the time and what comments he got about them. The next image i found interesting was this one:

Rue Transnonain le 15 avril 1834.

This, i think, highlights the struggle to survive at the time, again you can see his interest in politics. I find this really dark and very sad. I found out that the house at ' Rue Transnonain' was close to a barricade set up because of an uprising. At the end of it 19 people, including children were killed. 

This scene is horrible! it is clearly the aftermath of the event and it is so still and cold. The man in the middle, still in his nightwear, is lying on what i think is the body of a child. I can also see an old man and a woman on the sides of the lithograph... which makes it worse! its almost like he is saying no one escaped and no one was spared because of age or gender. Quite shocking to look at. 

The dark tones and the way he has cast the light is almost beautiful and adds to the stillness of the scene. I really enjoyed looking at his work! I found it clever, sometimes funny and sometimes brutal, but always stunning, and shows off how much skill this man had!