687. Horatio Greenough (1805-1852),

American, George Washington, 1840. Marble,

354.4 x 259.1 x 209.6 cm.Smithsonian American

Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

 

 

Honoré Daumier

(1808 Marseille – 1879 Valmondois)

 

French caricaturist, printer and sculptor Honoré Daumier showed in his earliest youth an irresistible inclination towards the artistic profession. Having mastered the technique of lithography, Daumier started his artistic career by producing plates for music publishers and illustrations for advertisements. When, in the reign of Louis Philippe, Philipon launched the comic journal La Caricature, Daumier joined its staff and embarked on his pictorial campaign of scathing satire upon the foibles of the bourgeoisie, the corruption of the law and the incompetence of a blundering government. His caricature of the king as “Gargantua” led to Daumier’s imprisonment for six months at Sainte-Pélagie in 1832. The publication of La Caricature discontinued soon after, but Philipon provided a new field for Daumier’s activity when he founded Charivari.

In spite of his prodigious activity in the field of caricature, he still found time for painting. One of the pioneers of naturalism, Daumier was before his time.