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L’Image railleuse

 | 
Laurent Baridon
, 
Frédérique Desbuissons
, 
Dominic Hardy

Réflexivités satiriques

Studio Practice, Art, and Caricature

Patricia Mainardi

Entrées d'index

Géographique :

France

Chronologique :

XIXe siècle

Texte intégral

  • 1 Works by Daumier are identified here by their catalogue number in Dieter Noack and Lilian Noack (ed (...)
  • 2 These Salons in caricature were, more recently, the subject of an exhibition and catalogue by Thier (...)
  • 3 Henry Murger published Scènes de la vie de Bohème in the revue Le Corsaire-Satan from March 1845 to (...)
  • 4 “The ‘Mediatization’ of the Artist,” colloquium was held in Amsterdam, June 19–20, 2014, with a rel (...)

1In the nineteenth century, caricatures of works of art became familiar to the art-loving public and were especially ubiquitous around the time of Salon exhibitions. Charles Léger’s pioneering Courbet selon les caricatures et les images, published in 1920, was the first study of such images.1 He proposed the topic as an important area of investigation because these caricatures, ridiculing both subject and style, show us how works of art appeared to contemporaries, and often are more revelatory than written art criticism. These cartoons usually appeared first in the periodical press but were frequently later reprinted in small livrets resembling the official Salon catalogue.2 But, whether they were published in periodicals such as Le Journal pour rire or Le Charivari, or issued as livrets, they satirized the entire world of art, including artists, works of art, the Salon jury, and the art-viewing public. Caricatures of works of art were always the most popular; Cham’s send-up of Manet’s Olympia (fig. 1), shown in the 1865 Salon, is a well-known example of the genre, but the nineteenth-century public took an avid interest in the lives of artists as well as in the works of art they created. Henry Murger’s Scènes de la vie de Bohème, which he began publishing in 1845, popularized this new media attraction and inspired what might well be the most influential depiction of artists’ lives, Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème (1896).3 There has been a growing interest in this subject, the avid focus on the artist as a public figure in art and literature, which a recent colloquium termed “The ‘Mediatization’ of the Artist.”4

Fig. 1: Cham, Manet. La naissance du petit ébéniste, published in Le Salon de 1865 photographié par Cham, Paris, Arnauld de Vresse, 1865, no. 1428, wood engraving, 6.5 × 6.5 cm.

© CC-BY.

2In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to depictions of art-making and studio practice. And yet shifts in the practice of making art in the nineteenth-century were all observed and commented upon by contemporaneous artists in caricature. Since the public was, for the most part, familiar only with the final product, the work of art seen in exhibitions, these cartoons served to reveal aspects of studio practice that previously had been unknown to them.

  • 5 Illustrations for the Encyclopédie were published as separate volumes; the illustrations for peintu (...)

3Nineteenth-century depictions of art production differed enormously from those that had been published in Diderot’s Encyclopédie a century earlier, where the processes of art were represented in a respectful and idealized mode.5 The engraving Dessein, Figures Grouppées (fig. 2) for example, shows two idealized models posing in the studio. The pose of the lower figure has an outflung arm that, although an effective rhetorical gesture, would be impossible for any human being, even a professional model, to hold for very long. The public, in viewing images such as this, might well think that the artist had reproduced precisely what was seen. And yet, the reality was that studio models used a vast array of props and supports, which academic artists regularly transformed into the staffs, boulders, and trees of their compositions.

Fig. 2: Robert Bénard after Jean Jouvenet, Dessein, Figures Grouppées, published in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication, 2/2/3, Paris, Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1763, pl. XIX, engraving, 40.5 × 26.8 cm.

© CC-BY.

  • 6 On Marconi, see “Marconi, Gaudenzio (1842–1885),” in John Hannavy (ed.), Encyclopedia of Nineteenth (...)
  • 7 Gaudenzio Marconi, Nu masculin assis (Seated Male Nude), c. 1870, albumen print, 34.8 × 25.9 cm, Pa (...)

4The existence of the supports that models needed to maintain difficult poses could not be disguised in photographs as easily as in the engravings of the Encyclopédie, however. Gaudenzio Marconi (1841–1885), an Italian photographer resident in Paris in the late nineteenth century, specialized in photographs of models in traditional academic poses, which for decades served as instructional tools for art students.6 In Nu masculin assis7 from the 1870s, Marconi’s model needs two supports, one for each hand. While photographers could not disguise the existence of these studio props, academic artists could easily eradicate this reality. In Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Le travail du marbre, ou l’artiste sculptant Tanagra (fig. 3) the sculptor’s model appears to be posing without any support whatsoever for her outstretched arms, a pose impossible for a model to hold for the length of time necessary to complete the sculpture.

Fig. 3: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Le Travail du marbre, ou l’artiste sculptant Tanagra, 1890, oil on canvas, 50.5 × 39.4 cm, New York, Dahesh Museum of Art, inv. 1995.104.

© Dahesh Museum of Art, New York. 1995.104.

  • 8 The series Mœurs des peintres (Painters’ Customs) is catalogued in the collection of the Bibliothèq (...)

5For caricaturists, this vast distance between the ideal and the real was a prime subject for ridicule, and they attacked it with enthusiasm. Gustave Doré (1832–1883), in his 1850 series Les mœurs des peintres (fig. 4) seems to have taken especial delight in emphasizing the studio reality in all its artificiality and absurdity.8 He shows us the same rhetorical poses as in academic painting, but here Doré reveals the tools and technology – even the model’s exhaustion – that were necessary to produce these paintings. Doré draws attention to the vast distance between the lofty aspirations of art and the often-pedestrian methods of achieving those aims.

Fig. 4: Gustave Doré, Les Mœurs des peintres, 1850, lithograph, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.

  • 9 Honoré Daumier, Pygmalion (DR 971), from the series Histoire ancienne, published in Le Charivari, D (...)
  • 10 The fifty lithographs comprising Daumier’s series Histoire ancienne (Ancient History) (DR 925-974) (...)
  • 11 The series Scènes d’atelier [Studio Scenes] comprises four prints, DR 1721-1724, published in Le Ch (...)
  • 12 “Well, if St. Gervais really held this painful pose, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s considered a (...)

6Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) had much the same attitude as Doré towards academic subjects. In his series Histoire ancienne, fifty lithographs published in Le Charivari between 1841 and 1843, he redrew scenes from classical literature, emphasizing the absurdity of their subjects by placing them in modern situations. His Pygmalion9 for example, demands comparison to Gérôme’s later Tanagra, since both take as their subject the sculptor and his model, but Daumier accompanies his image with a mock elegiac verse: “O triomphe des arts ! quelle fût ta surprise, / Grand sculpteur, quand tu vis ton marbre s’animer / Et, d’un air chaste et doux, lentement se baisser / Pour te demander une prise.10 To underscore the contrast between high art and real life, Daumier shows the model reaching down for a pinch of the sculptor’s snuff. Daumier drew numerous caricatures of artists at work, including Scènes d’atelier, a series of four lithographs published in Le Charivari where he depicts art production in terms similar to Doré.11 Most striking is the cartoon where he shows an artist trying to arrange his model for a religious painting depicting the second-century martyr Saint Gervais (fig. 5). The figure’s pose, reclining with a raised arm, would clearly be possible only with the assistance of the rope support shown dangling from the ceiling – but even then it would be uncomfortable to maintain for very long. The model protests: “Comment, St Gervais a pris cette position là... ça ne m’étonne plus s’il a passé pour un fameux martyr !12 Daumier clearly wants the viewer to understand the difficulties of the actual process of making art – as well as the vast distance between the image that we see in the finished painting and the mechanics of its studio production. He emphasizes this by depicting the pedestrian reality of the artist’s studio with its primitively constructed model’s stand and block support for the model’s head. The studio décor itself undercuts the tragedy of the martyr’s death with paintings and sculptural casts displayed on the wall. The model for Saint Gervais looks less like a martyr than an impoverished Parisian trying to earn a bit of cash by posing for the artist. Daumier has neglected nothing that might increase the irony of the scene, even clothing his artist in fashionable plaid trousers that add a frivolous note that contradicts the solemnity of the martyrdom he is about to depict.

Fig. 5: Honoré Daumier, Comment, St Gervais a pris cette position là (DR1724), from the series Scènes d’atelier, lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, April 9, 1850, lithograph, 21.2 × 24.9 cm, London, British Museum.

© Trustees of the British Museum.

  • 13 Monnier’s series Récréations was published by Geraldon-Bovinet in London and Paris beginning in 182 (...)

7Henry Monnier (1799–1877) does something similar in Intérieur d’un atelier from his series Récréations of 1826 where he depicts an artist’s studio during a pause when the models are resting (fig. 6).13 The female model is shown taking advantage of her free time by doing some sewing. Her fashionable hat and stockings hang from the back of her chair, while the male model, half clothed, his hairy legs attentively delineated by Monnier, smokes his pipe. The counterpoint between real and ideal is underscored by the canvas the artist is painting, where we see these models transformed into gods and goddesses in the theatrical poses typical of such works. The contrast of the poses of the painted figures with the relaxed and natural poses of the models resting in the studio is further emphasized by the rhetorical flourishes of the casts of antique sculpture displayed on the shelf behind the artist’s easel. These casts were a standard part of studio equipment, and served as models for academic artists; to further accentuate this absurdity, Monnier has positioned the cast of a leg framed by a graceful figure on each side.

Fig. 6: Henry Monnier, Récréations: Intérieur d’un atelier, lith. Bernard, ed. Giraldon-Bovinet, 1826, hand-colored lithograph, 21.6 × 27.9 cm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.

8On one level, these cartoons present humorous “behind the scenes” views of studio practice, but there is another, more serious level that demands consideration. Since paintings of historical, mythological, and religious subjects were familiar to all Salon visitors, caricaturists could use these subjects as vehicles to attack the academic art establishment and the aesthetic hierarchy it upheld. The public no doubt imagined models and settings as idealized as those depicted in the finished works displayed in the Salon, and yet implicit in these caricatures is the contrast between the truthfulness of the models’ appearance and pose – which the caricaturist takes pains to show us – and the deceit through which they were transformed into an insincere idealism. The end result of the academic artist’s labors is here demonstrated to be a work of art that has nothing to do with real life. How better to attack the falsity and irrelevance of academic standards than by demonstrating the mechanics of how these works were actually produced! Cartoons like these mounted a relentless attack on the grand classical tradition as being inherently dishonest in its essence. And here it is worth noting that the caricaturists themselves came from the generation that produced the first challenge to the academic dominance of official exhibitions. Daumier, Doré, and Monnier, all born between 1799 and 1808, were part of the French generation that supported oppositional movements in art against the standards of the Academy – so it was by no means innocent humor that represented these academic standards as ridiculous, objects of raucous laughter.

  • 14 [François] Thiébault-Sisson, “Claude Monet,” Le Temps, November 26, 1900; the date is usually given (...)

9The transformation of the real into the ideal had long been an essential part of the art-making process. Claude Monet (1840–1926) told of being criticized by his teacher Charles Gleyre (1806–1874) for drawing a model exactly as he was: Gleyre said to him: “C’est trop dans le caractère du modèle. Vous avez un bonhomme trapu: vous le peignez trapu. Il a des pieds énormes: vous les rendez tels quels. C’est très laid, tout ça. Rappelez-vous donc, jeune homme, que, quand on exécute une figure, on doit toujours penser à l’antique. La nature, mon ami, c’est très bien comme élément d’étude, mais ça n’offre pas d’intérêt. Le style, voyez-vous, il n’y a que ça.14 Clearly this was a lesson that the history painter depicted by Monnier has already learned. The sculpture casts on the shelf behind Monnier’s academic artist show the ideal forms that Gleyre counseled Monet to substitute for visual experience – and that Gérôme, who had attended the École des beaux-arts, faithfully depicted in his Tanagra. Cartoons like Monnier’s can be seen as the younger artist’s revenge, turning the tables on conventional art practice and having the last laugh.

  • 15 Thomas Couture, La Peinture réaliste [Realist Painting], 1865, oil on panel, 56 × 45 cm, Dublin, Na (...)
  • 16 The National Gallery of Ireland identifies the sculpture the artist sits on as Jupiter, though it s (...)
  • 17 Gustave Courbet, L’Aumône d’un mendiant à Ornans, 1868, oil on canvas, 210.9 × 175.3 cm, Glasgow, B (...)
  • 18 Bertall’s cartoon was titled Les Curiosités du Salon de 1868 and was published on the front page of (...)

10In painting, the polar opposite of the practice of idealizing the model was represented by artists of the Realist camp, of whom Courbet was the most notorious. Courbet was clearly the butt of Thomas Couture’s 1865 La Peinture réaliste15 where the realist painter sits on a cast of the head of an idealized god while taking as his model a pig’s head.16 Here the academic camp reverses Monnier’s joke: we no longer laugh at the absurdity of the transformation of reality into the idealized figures of history painting, but now the butt of the joke is the precise representation of those quotidian models in all their vulgar realism. For while it was accepted that the Academic artist should transform and idealize his models, the Realist artist was accused of purposely choosing models where idealism was neither necessary nor even desirable. Courbet was the epitome of the Realist artist, so it is no surprise that his painting L’Aumône d’un mendiant à Ornans17 caused a sensation at the Salon of 1868. The contrast of his alms-giving beggar to idealized Salon figures was immediately apparent to the public. This feature was emphasized in a cartoon by Bertall (Charles-Albert d’Arnoux [1820–1882]) that appeared in Le Journal amusant, where Courbet’s beggar is juxtaposed with a classical Académie (fig. 7); Realism and Idealism are here each taken to an extreme.18

Fig. 7: Bertall [Charles-Albert d’Arnoux], Les Curiosités du Salon de 1868, from the series Promenade au Salon de 1868, ed. Aubert, published in Le Journal amusant, May 30, 1868, wood engraving, 30.2 × 21.6 cm.

© CC-BY.

11The theme of the Realist artist’s work as “true” constituted a complement to that of Academic art as “false” and became an equally fertile topic for caricaturists.

  • 19 Honoré Daumier, Voyons, c’est y fini ?.... [Well, are you finally finished?... after all, it’s tiri (...)
  • 20 Honoré Daumier, N’bougez pas !... vous êtes superbe comme ça (DR3427), from the series Les Paysagis (...)

12In Daumier’s series Les artistes à la campagne (1865), we can see that the problem of the poor fellow posing as Saint Gervais has been reversed. Here the model posing for a Realist artist who is drawing a genre scene complains that his position is too easy: – Voyons, c’est y fini?.... c’est tout d’même fatiguant de se reposer aussi longtemps qu’ça....19 This model really is a farm laborer; he is not being forced into an artificial pose pretending to be someone he is not, and so he needs none of the supports so necessary for the Académies. Because of this, his pose – and the resulting work of art – is authentic. The message to the viewer is that this artist draws and paints exactly what he sees, namely, real life. Daumier offered a similar message in Les Paysagistes where the artist tells an awkward farm woman who has interrupted her work to come and gawk at him, her sickle still in her hand, “N’bougez pas !... vous êtes superbe comme ça.20 On a superficial level, the joke in these cartoons is that the Realist artist actually prefers models who are lacking in elegance and grace; this is funny only because it contrasts with the conventional belief of Daumier’s audience that artists had an obligation to choose more elevated and idealized subjects. On a more serious level, however, Daumier is proposing that Realist artists’ works are more authentic, less mannered and artificial because of their decision to paint “real life.”

13This point of view was further accentuated by caricatures of landscape artists at work. In terms of landscape, art practice in the nineteenth century differed greatly from preceding traditions, largely because the invention of paint in tubes allowed artists to work directly from the motif. Earlier artists painted only sketches out-of-doors, while creating works for exhibition in the studio. The ease of travel, with railroads linking every part of the country, encouraged landscape painting to be sure, but we should also note the role that cartoonists played in publicizing and familiarizing the general public with the practice of plein-air painting. The Romantic generation, which produced the Barbizon School, France’s first plein-air movement of landscape painters, also produced the cartoonists who “explained” – albeit in a humorous way – their work to the public. Their caricatures, although witty, served to legitimize this new art form by emphasizing both the hard work of being a landscape artist and the authenticity of the paintings they produced.

  • 21 Eugène Giraud, Les Paysagistes [The Landscape Artists], lith. Delaunois, published in L’Artiste, 6/ (...)
  • 22 Honoré Daumier, À la recherche d’une forêt en Champagne [Looking for a Forest in Champagne] (DR1725 (...)

14The periodical L’Artiste, founded in 1831, supported both Romanticism and landscape painting, and often included prints of landscape scenes as a bonus to subscribers. So it is not surprising that it published what might well be the earliest caricature of landscape artists at work, a drawing by Eugène Giraud (1806–1881), Les Paysagistes.21 Although witty, it is far too mild to be called caricature. Giraud emphasizes these artists’ physical stamina and seriousness of purpose as, burdened down with equipment, they brave sun and wind, traipsing through the countryside looking for a motif. Fifteen years later, Daumier drew a similar image for Le Charivari, À la recherche d’une forêt en Champagne (fig. 8) again emphasizing the difficulty of landscape painters’ enterprise, showing them bent over with heavy backpacks traversing a difficult terrain.22

Fig. 8: Honoré Daumier, À la recherche d’une forêt en Champagne (DR1725), lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, August 19, 1848, hand-colored lithograph, 21.8 × 25.8 cm, London, British Museum.

© Trustees of the British Museum.

15Why are these images even considered humorous? No doubt because the very concept of artists trudging through the countryside looking for something to paint was shockingly new to an audience that had been accustomed to the idea of artists’ inventing and idealizing their motifs, not walking around looking for motifs to present themselves, ready-made for transcription onto canvas.

  • 23 Honoré Daumier, Aperçois-tu un lieu civilisé où on puisse espérer une omelette de douze oeufs?... [ (...)
  • 24 Les Artistes (DR1727), Le Charivari, May 24, 1849.

16In 1849, Daumier published another cartoon, Les Artistes,23 showing landscape artists looking for a motif, again emphasizing the laborious aspects of their profession. Here we see them in the middle of nowhere, carrying their painting gear, hungry and unable to find either a motif or some place to eat. One artist asks the other, who stands on a rock surveying the barren countryside, “– Aperçois-tu un lieu civilisé où on puisse espérer une omelette de douze œufs ?....” The lookout responds “– J’n’aperçois seulement pas un chat...,” which brings forth the rebuke “– Cherche donc plutôt une poule….24 This is amusing, to be sure, but it also serves to underscore the landscape artist’s identity as a hard-working explorer who ventures into the unknown, braving discomforts, and even hunger, in order to return with pictures that provide authentic visual experiences for urban dwellers who remain in the comfort of their homes. The humor of works such as these comes from the public’s mental comparison of the effete studio artist (whom we saw [see fig. 5] clad in fashionable plaid trousers) with these stalwart adventurers.

  • 25 Croquis d’expressions, a series of 100 lithographs, was published by Aubert in 1838–1839 and includ (...)

17In the field of portraiture, the real and the ideal were on a constant collision course that was even more evident than in the realm of landscape painting. We might assume that portraiture would involve an accurate transcription of the physiognomy of the sitter, and, indeed this is the joke in Un Français peint par lui-même (fig. 9) a cartoon from Daumier’s series Scènes d’atelier: he shows the artist looking in a mirror and producing exactly same image, even including the artist’s scowl. The reason this is funny is because the truth is that, when it comes to our personal appearance, we are all classicists, we all want to be idealized. Daumier exploited this tension in numerous cartoons that focus on the practice of portraiture. In Croquis d’expressions (fig. 10) an artist worries that his sitter might attempt to swat away the fly that has landed on his nose. “Que diable, Monsieur, ne bougez donc pas les mains, vous perdez la pose,” he says – as though the artist were like a photographer who must make an exact copy of what he sees.25 The clearest statement of this real/ideal contradiction comes from another cartoon in the series Croquis d’expressions where a very plain woman complains to the artist who has just completed her portrait: Dieu ! quel nez vous me faites ! (fig. 11). Despite her dissatisfaction with the nose the artist has painted, Daumier shows us clearly that, in fact, he has quite accurately reproduced her features.

Fig. 9: Honoré Daumier, Un Français peint par lui-même (DR1722), from the series Scènes d’atelier, lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, March 29, 1849, lithograph, 21.6 × 23.1 cm, Paris, Musée Carnavalet.

© Musée Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet.

Fig. 10: Honoré Daumier, Que diable, Monsieur, ne bougez donc pas les mains, vous perdez la pose ! (DR502), from the series Croquis d’expressions, lith. Aubert, ed. Bauger, published in La Caricature provisoire, November 1, 1838, lithograph, 29.5 × 22.8 cm, Paris, Maison de Balzac.

© Maison de Balzac/Roger-Viollet.

Fig. 11: Honoré Daumier, Dieu ! quel nez vous me faites ! (DR474), from the series Croquis d’expressions, lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, April 29, 1838, hand-colored lithograph, 29.2 × 22.1 cm, Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale.

© Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon.

18The net result was that by the late nineteenth century, studio practice was no longer a mysterious process that almost magically created finished works of art. The work and the procedures that artists traditionally employed either to reproduce or to idealize visual experience had become familiar to the general public. And so, although the Realism that dominated the art of the second half of the nineteenth century is usually credited to the influence of photography, we must also acknowledge the concerted effort by generations of caricaturists. They demonstrated ceaselessly that works of art are constructed, not through any exalted inner vision of the artist, but either through the tricks and deceptions of academic artists, or through the hard work and careful observation of their colleagues, artists whose project was to bring art into conjunction with modern life.

Notes

1 Works by Daumier are identified here by their catalogue number in Dieter Noack and Lilian Noack (eds.), The Daumier Register (DR), [online] URL: www.daumier-register.org. See Charles Léger, Courbet selon les caricatures et les images, Paris, Paul Rosenberg, 1920.

2 These Salons in caricature were, more recently, the subject of an exhibition and catalogue by Thierry Chabanne (ed.), Les Salons caricaturaux, Paris, RMN (« Les Dossiers du Musée d’Orsay », 41), 1990; and a doctoral dissertation by Yin-Hsuan Yang, Les Premiers Salons caricaturaux au xixe siècle, Nanterre, Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest, 2011.

3 Henry Murger published Scènes de la vie de Bohème in the revue Le Corsaire-Satan from March 1845 to April 1849, then as one volume under the title Scènes de la Bohême, Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1851; the definitive title was used from 1852 on. Giacomo Puccini composed the music for La Bohème, which premiered in Turin on February 1, 1896; the libretto was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa based on Murger’s tales. On bohemia, see Jerrold E. Seigel, Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830–1930, New York, Viking, 1986.

4 “The ‘Mediatization’ of the Artist,” colloquium was held in Amsterdam, June 19–20, 2014, with a related publication, The Mediatization of the Artist, Rachel Esner and Sandra Kisters (eds.), London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

5 Illustrations for the Encyclopédie were published as separate volumes; the illustrations for peinture and dessein were included in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication, II/2, t. 3, Paris, Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1763, s. v.

6 On Marconi, see “Marconi, Gaudenzio (1842–1885),” in John Hannavy (ed.), Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, New York, Taylor & Francis, 2008, s. v.

7 Gaudenzio Marconi, Nu masculin assis (Seated Male Nude), c. 1870, albumen print, 34.8 × 25.9 cm, Paris, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, [online] URL: art.rmngp.fr/fr/library/artworks/gaudenzio-marconi_modele-masculin-assis-nu-posant-en-saint-jean-baptiste_epreuve-sur-papier-albumine. See the exhibition catalogue Regards sur la photographie en France au xixe siècle. 180 chefs-d’œuvre de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1980, no 92; and the exhibition catalogue L’Art du nu au xixe siècle. Le photographe et son modèle, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1997, no 186.

8 The series Mœurs des peintres (Painters’ Customs) is catalogued in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France as Suite de sept planches à plusieurs sujets sur les mœurs des peintres, dated 1850; its publication history is unknown. It is listed as Les peintres in Gabriele Forberg (ed.), Gustave Doré: Das graphische Werk, vol. 2, Munich, Rogner und Bernhard, 1975, no 1204.

9 Honoré Daumier, Pygmalion (DR 971), from the series Histoire ancienne, published in Le Charivari, December 28, 1842, lithograph, 18.9 × 22.9 cm, lith. Aubert, ed. Bauger, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, [online] URL: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/355847.

10 The fifty lithographs comprising Daumier’s series Histoire ancienne (Ancient History) (DR 925-974) were published in Le Charivari between December 1841 and January 1843. Pygmalion (DR 951) appeared in Le Charivari on December 28, 1842. [“Oh, triumph of the arts! What a surprise / Great sculptor, when you saw your marble come alive / And with a chaste, sweet voice, slowly bend down / to ask for a pinch (of your snuff).”] On the series, see Jenny Squires Wilker’s 1996 dissertation for the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, published as Daumier’s “Histoire Ancienne:” French Classical Parody in the 1840s, Ann Arbor, UMI, 1999.

11 The series Scènes d’atelier [Studio Scenes] comprises four prints, DR 1721-1724, published in Le Charivari, January 26, 1848, March 29, 1849, April 9, 1850, and June 21, 1850.

12 “Well, if St. Gervais really held this painful pose, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s considered a famous martyr.”

13 Monnier’s series Récréations was published by Geraldon-Bovinet in London and Paris beginning in 1826; numbering is irregular but there are over thirty hand-colored lithographs. The Bibliographie de France continued to list them, irregularly, until 1840. For a searchable database of prints announced in the Bibliographie de France (the record of the Dépôt legal) for the years 1795–1880, see “Image of France, 17951880,” The ARTFL Project, [online] URL: artfl-project.uchicago.edu/content/version-française.

14 [François] Thiébault-Sisson, “Claude Monet,” Le Temps, November 26, 1900; the date is usually given, incorrectly, as November 27, 1900. An English translation was published as Claude Monet. An Interview. 1900. Translation of an Article by Thiébaut-Sisson (sic), Published in Le Temps, Paris, 27 (sic) November, 1900; no further publication information is given. [“This is too much like the model. You have before you a short, thickset man: you paint him short and thickset. He has enormous feet: you render them as they are. All that is very ugly. Always remember, young man, that when one draws a figure, one should always think of the antique. Nature, my friend, is all very well as an element of study, but it offers no interest. Style, you must understand, there is nothing else but style.”]

15 Thomas Couture, La Peinture réaliste [Realist Painting], 1865, oil on panel, 56 × 45 cm, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, [online] URL: onlinecollection.nationalgallery.ie/objects/8363/la-peinture-realiste.

16 The National Gallery of Ireland identifies the sculpture the artist sits on as Jupiter, though it seems more likely to be Apollo or Adonis; Jupiter is usually depicted as an older man. The work is often titled The Realist or The Realist Painter.

17 Gustave Courbet, L’Aumône d’un mendiant à Ornans, 1868, oil on canvas, 210.9 × 175.3 cm, Glasgow, Burrell Collection, [online] URL: www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=106456.

18 Bertall’s cartoon was titled Les Curiosités du Salon de 1868 and was published on the front page of Le Journal amusant, May 30, 1868, as part of his series Promenades au Salon de 1868; it appeared in three installments in Le Journal amusant, May 16, 23, and 30, 1868.

19 Honoré Daumier, Voyons, c’est y fini ?.... [Well, are you finally finished?... after all, it’s tiring to rest for such a long time] (DR3418), from the series Les artistes à la campagne [Artists in the Countryside], lith. Destouches, ed. Martinet, published in Le Charivari, February 2, 1865, lithograph, 20.0 × 23.1 cm, Waltham, Brandeis University Libraries – Trustman Collection, [online] URL: www.daumier-register.org/detail_popup.php?img=DR3418_3&dr=3418&lingua=fr.

20 Honoré Daumier, N’bougez pas !... vous êtes superbe comme ça (DR3427), from the series Les Paysagistes [The Landscape Painters], lith. Destouches, ed. Martinet, published in Le Charivari, April 12, 1865, lithograph, 19.9 × 23.8 cm, Gingins, Neumann-Lotar Collection, [online] URL: www.daumier-register.org/detail_popup.php?img=DR3427_44&dr=3427&lingua=fr. Daumier did several cartoons on the subject of landscape painters: Les Paysagistes (DR 3428 and 3429 published in 1864) and Les Paysagistes en hiver (DR 3311 published in 1865).

21 Eugène Giraud, Les Paysagistes [The Landscape Artists], lith. Delaunois, published in L’Artiste, 6/15, 1833, after p. 184, lithograph, 25.3 × 32.2 cm, San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, [online] URL: art.famsf.org/pierre-fran%C3%A7ois-eug%C3%A8ne-giraud/les-paysagistes-series-lartiste-19901243.

22 Honoré Daumier, À la recherche d’une forêt en Champagne [Looking for a Forest in Champagne] (DR1725) was published in Le Charivari on August 19, 1848 as part of his series of six lithographs Les Artistes.

23 Honoré Daumier, Aperçois-tu un lieu civilisé où on puisse espérer une omelette de douze oeufs?... [– Can you see a civilized place where one could hope to get a twelve-egg omelet?… – I don’t even see a cat… – You should be looking for a chicken…] (DR1727), from the series Les Artistes, lith. & ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, May 24, 1849, lithograph, 21.5 × 25.8 cm, San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, [online] URL: art.famsf.org/honor%C3%A9-daumier/aper%C3%A7ois-tu-un-lieu-civilis%C3%A9-o%C3%B9-puisse-esp%C3%A9rer-une-omelette-de-douze-oeufs-jnaper%C3%A7ois.

24 Les Artistes (DR1727), Le Charivari, May 24, 1849.

25 Croquis d’expressions, a series of 100 lithographs, was published by Aubert in 1838–1839 and included 55 lithographs by Daumier (DR466-521), the rest by Plattel and Platier.

Table des illustrations

Légende Fig. 1: Cham, Manet. La naissance du petit ébéniste, published in Le Salon de 1865 photographié par Cham, Paris, Arnauld de Vresse, 1865, no. 1428, wood engraving, 6.5 × 6.5 cm.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 48k
Légende Fig. 2: Robert Bénard after Jean Jouvenet, Dessein, Figures Grouppées, published in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication, 2/2/3, Paris, Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1763, pl. XIX, engraving, 40.5 × 26.8 cm.
Crédits © CC-BY.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 72k
Légende Fig. 3: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Le Travail du marbre, ou l’artiste sculptant Tanagra, 1890, oil on canvas, 50.5 × 39.4 cm, New York, Dahesh Museum of Art, inv. 1995.104.
Crédits © Dahesh Museum of Art, New York. 1995.104.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 20k
Légende Fig. 4: Gustave Doré, Les Mœurs des peintres, 1850, lithograph, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Crédits Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 16k
Légende Fig. 5: Honoré Daumier, Comment, St Gervais a pris cette position là (DR1724), from the series Scènes d’atelier, lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, April 9, 1850, lithograph, 21.2 × 24.9 cm, London, British Museum.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 76k
Légende Fig. 6: Henry Monnier, Récréations: Intérieur d’un atelier, lith. Bernard, ed. Giraldon-Bovinet, 1826, hand-colored lithograph, 21.6 × 27.9 cm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Crédits Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 64k
Légende Fig. 7: Bertall [Charles-Albert d’Arnoux], Les Curiosités du Salon de 1868, from the series Promenade au Salon de 1868, ed. Aubert, published in Le Journal amusant, May 30, 1868, wood engraving, 30.2 × 21.6 cm.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 128k
Légende Fig. 8: Honoré Daumier, À la recherche d’une forêt en Champagne (DR1725), lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, August 19, 1848, hand-colored lithograph, 21.8 × 25.8 cm, London, British Museum.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 64k
Légende Fig. 9: Honoré Daumier, Un Français peint par lui-même (DR1722), from the series Scènes d’atelier, lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, March 29, 1849, lithograph, 21.6 × 23.1 cm, Paris, Musée Carnavalet.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 68k
Légende Fig. 10: Honoré Daumier, Que diable, Monsieur, ne bougez donc pas les mains, vous perdez la pose ! (DR502), from the series Croquis d’expressions, lith. Aubert, ed. Bauger, published in La Caricature provisoire, November 1, 1838, lithograph, 29.5 × 22.8 cm, Paris, Maison de Balzac.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 60k
Légende Fig. 11: Honoré Daumier, Dieu ! quel nez vous me faites ! (DR474), from the series Croquis d’expressions, lith. and ed. Aubert, published in Le Charivari, April 29, 1838, hand-colored lithograph, 29.2 × 22.1 cm, Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale.
URL http://books.openedition.org/inha/docannexe/image/8260/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 23k

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