Honoré Daumier: Head and Shoulders Above Other Caricaturists

Honoré Daumier - Jean-Auguste Chevandier de Valdrome, Parliamentarian (The Fool) - 1832-35 - Oil-glazed clay, height 19 cm - Musée d'Orsay, ParisFrench caricaturist, painter, and sculptor Honoré Daumier was known chiefly as a political and social satirist, during his lifetime. But since his death, recognition of his qualities as a painter has grown.

In 1830, after learning the still fairly new process of lithography, he began to contribute political cartoons to the antigovernment weekly, “Caricature”. He was an ardent Republican and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in 1832 for his attacks on Louis-Philippe, whom he represented as 'Gargantua swallowing bags of gold extorted from the people'.

Honoré Daumier - The Uprising - c. 1860 - Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 113 cm (34 1/2 x 44 1/2 in); The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (click photo for larger image)

On the suppression of political satire in 1835 he again turned to the satire of social life. At the time of the 1848 revolution, he returned to political subjects.

He is said to have made more  than 4,000 lithographs, wishing each time that the one he had just made could be his last. In the last years of his life he was almost blind and was saved from destitution by the artist Camille Corot.

In the directness of his vision and the lack of sentimentality with which he depicts current social life, Daumier belongs to the Realist school of which Gustav Courbet was the chief representative. As a caricaturist, he stands head and shoulders above all others of the 19th century. He had the gift of expressing the whole character of a person through physiognomy, and the essence of his satire lay in his power to interpret mental folly in terms of physical absurdity. In this respect, his work is accurately placed within the realm of Symbolism. Although he never made a commercial success of his art, he was appreciated by discriminating individuals. Delacroix, Corot, Forain, and Baudelaire were among his friends. Degas was one of a number of artists who collected his works.

Symbolism: Fantastic Realities

Odilon Redon - The Cyclops - c. 1900 - Oil on canvas (click photo for larger image)During the decades before 1900--and into the twentieth century--the Symbolists were the avant-garde, and one of quite a new kind, influencing not only the arts but also the thought and spirit of the epoch. Symbolists believed that art should aim to capture  absolute truths, which could only be accessed by indirect methods. Thus, they wrote and painted in a highly metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. They drew upon everything from religious art to literature to dream imagery. The Symbolist Manifesto claimed Symbolism to be hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description", stating that its goal instead was to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal”. Odilon Redon was one of the masters of Symbolism. A piece on him will follow soon!

Alfred Kubin

Alfred Kubin - Untitled (The Eternal Flame) (Ohne Titel [Die ewige Flamme]) - (c. 1900). Watercolor and ink on paper, 13 x 10 3/4" (33 x 27.3 cm). John S. Newberry Collection. Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) - New York Alfred Kubin - On the Tower Stairs (Auf der Turmtreppe) - (n.d.). Pencil and ink on paper, 7 3/4 x 6 1/8" (19.7 x 15.6 cm). John S. Newberry Fund. Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) - New YorkAustrian draughtsman, illustrator, painter and writer, Alfred Kubin (1877-1959), had a taste for the morbid that was much influenced by the French Symbolist, Odilon Redon--as well as by German folklore and myths. Kubin made important contributions to both Symbolism and Expressionism--best known for his “dark, spectral fantasies” and taste for the morbid. Visit Artcyclopedia to find links to online collections that you can view. 

The Haunting Visual Poetry of Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon - The Smiling Spider - 1881- Charcoal - 49.5 x 39 cm - Musée du Louvre, Paris (click photo for larger image)Odilon Redon - The Crying Spider - 1881 - Charcoal - 49.5 x 37.5 cm - Private collection, The Netherlands (click photo for larger image)French artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was among the finest of the Symbolist painters. The mystery and sometimes grotesque nature of his work is haunting - highly imaginable - and definitely inspiring. Redon’s work can be a resource for any artists interested in creating fantastic characters--and a source of enjoyment for all people who simply enjoy visual poetry and the bizarre! Visit the above link to learn more about Redon--and to peruse his art.