Early nineteenth century France was an exhilarating and sometimes a treacherous world of revolutions.
It was flavored with a mix of propriety and sensuousness, which eventually helped the development of new artistic and the literary modes of production.
In this era, the world was gifted with the excellent artists, such as Honore Daumier, a caricaturist, painter, printmaker, and sculptor.
He covered a wide range of subjects, spanning from literature, society, and science to the art world.
Honore Daumier was born as 'Honore Victorin Daumier' on February 26, 1808, in Marseille, to Jean-Baptiste Louis Daumier and Cécile Catherine Philippe.
In 1814, Jean-Baptiste shifted to Paris.
The artist and his mother joined Jean in 1816.
Since his youth, Honore loved artistry, a passion Jean disapproved of.
To divert the artist's interests, Jean made him work first as an errand boy and then as an assistant to a bookseller.
In 1822, Alexandre Lenoir, Jean's friend and an artist & archaeologist, became Honore Daumier's patron.
Soon, in 1823, the artist enrolled at the Académie Suisse.
His formal art training did not last long and in 1825, he became an apprentice to the lithographer named Belliard.
Here, Honore got his first hand trials with lithography.
Daumier started his professional artistic pursuits with lithography.
He worked for advertisers and music publishers.
He drew images, mostly caricatures, directly on the lithographic stone or the wood-engraving blocks using greasy pencil or soft litho crayon.
He would draw a reverse image directly on the surface of a polished limestone, for a right printed image.
"Masques de" (1831) and "Le passé, Le present, L'avenir" (1834) are a couple of his greatest lithographs.
A compilation of Honore's lithographed plates numbered somewhere around 3,958.
During the reign of the then French King, Louis Philippe, Charles Philipon, a French artist & journalist, founded a satirical daily, Le Charivari, on Dec 01, 1832.
The artist soon joined the Charles' competent staff, with his caricatures being a fixture for forty years.
He developed an uncanny ability to exaggerate famous figures' features to an unrecognizable level, while keeping it spiced with humor.
He targeted social and political wrongs, especially of social big wigs and government.
Daumier was even proved guilty of lèse-majesté (violating the dignity of a sovereign ruler), because of his caricature of the King as "Gargantua" (1831), a lithograph.
Consequently, Honore was imprisoned for six months in 1832.
Soon Le Charivari replaced La Caricature, with Daumier continuing with his social caricature, resuming political satire in 1848.
His popularity led to the series called "L'Association mensuelle," (1834), which included "The Legislative Belly" & "Rue Transnoinan" and special editions known as "Sur Blanc" (1843).
Daumier created a notable number of sculptures in unbaked clay.
His sculpture, "Ratapoil," (1851) is a wondrous piece of art.
Meanwhile, he left Charivari in 1860 to rejoin in 1864.
Great painter also that he was, Daumier was a pioneer of 'Naturalism' with a probing honesty of vision and a powerful directness.
One of his masterpieces includes "Christ and His Apostles.
" Sadly, as a painter, Honore saw success only in 1878.
Through his life, strict censorship rules led Daumier to abandon 'political satire' and focus on the 'Parisian' type, paving way for 'Realism.
' His images crossed cultural and earthly boundaries.
His works continue to grace some of the world's leading art museums, including the Louvre.
Honore Daumier turned blind with age and passed away on February 10, 1879.