Biography of Honoré Daumier

The courage of satire

26 February 1808
10 February 1879
The fall of Charles X marks, for France, the end of the restoration of monarchical absolutism and early, with Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, redemption of bourgeois liberalism. But the process of emancipation of French society is just beginning, because during the reign of Louis-Philippe began to peep a new social consciousness, one of the most popular classes, of people who have always done the revolutions on behalf of others and now instead begins to mature, to be precise, a class consciousness. Among the first to express and disseminate, through his art, these sentiments, Honoré Daumier.
Painter, lithographer, engraver, Illustrator and sculptor, Daumier was born in Marseille on 26 January 1808 by Jean Baptiste Louis, multifaceted artisan-poet, and Cécile Catherine Philip. With its numerous artistic production that strives to describe reality in a detached manner and aseptic, Honoré Daumier goes to great lengths, along with Gustave Courbet and Jean Francoise Millet, among the fathers of realism, cultural movement-heir of positivism-born in France around 1840. The task he has announced is to caricaturist: during the years 1830 to 1835 publishes on opposition newspaper "La caricature lithographs by bring difficult socio-political and sarcasm" anti-bourgeois, continuing, from 1835, on "Charivari" producing a total of about 4,000 vignettes created with the lithographic technique.
One of the most famous caricatures is "Gargantua", dedicated to Louis-Philippe: the desecration of the King, to verge on insult, cost him six months in jail and a hefty fine. But the ruler will remain even after the beloved object of his satire. The tightening of the rules on freedom of the press, who come up to censorship, however, induced him to change style, giving to their cultural vignette content only: at this stage Honoré Daumier collaborates in "Chronique de Paris", the journal of the great Honoré de Balzac and bride, in 1846, Marie-Alexandrine Dassy. In the second half of the years ' 40 begins to devote himself to painting, even further to the friendship with the Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix. Afterwards tighten excellent relations with Charles-François Daubigny, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and Jean-François Millet, artists who enrich it much in spirit as in artistic expression.
Subject matter in this area draw inspiration from everyday reality, but the obvious novelty is represented by his painting makes him a niche artist: spend his last years in poverty and loneliness, with the comfort of a few friends who continue to regard him as a master, in particular by Corot that supports it economically. Now 71-year-old and almost completely private vision, Honoré Daumier, 10 February 1879 he died in Valmondois, at the age of 70 years. For the incisiveness and the innovative power of his art, it ranks among the greatest artists of the 19th century and among the precursors of impressionism.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.