Two Great Caricaturists

The artists Daumier and Gavarni were a major force in the development of caricature in nineteenth-century France. Daumier's fight with political censorship and Gavarni's subtle psychological portrayals of contemporary society made an important contribution to the art.

Honoré-Victorin Daumier, who was born in the southern town of Marseilles in 1808, was taken to Paris in 1816 by his mother and father. His parents were among the many people who flocked to the capital from France's provincial cities and rural areas in the early years of the nineteenth century.

In 1830 the young Daumier joined the group of talented but impoverished artists brought together by the publisher Charles Philipon. Philipon had a successful print-selling business and also published the two most important French satirical journals of the nineteenth century—the weekly La Caricature (Caricature) and the daily Le Charivari (Uproar), founded in 1830 and 1832 respectively.

Under Philipon's direction La Caricature and Le Charivari mercilessly ridiculed the government of the day, the so-called July Monarchy, lampooning the King—the bumbling and hypocritical Louis-Philippe— as well as his supporters. Philipon's 'little army' of artists supported the Republican cause in these journals. The weapon they employed was caricature and the medium they used was lithography.

Lithography, which was invented in the late eighteenth century, was ideal for the sorts of illustrations found in Philipon's publications. This technique, using a greasy crayon-like substance called tusche, enabled the artist to draw images with a degree of spontaneity conducive to caricature. These caricatures could then be transferred onto several stones, which meant that large editions could be printed on a number of presses simultaneously. This made the process suitable for the popular press.

Caricature, the exaggeration of a person's appearance, character traits, gestures or actions, proved by the 1830s to be a powerful political tool for criticism of the government. In 1834, for example, Daumier made for La Caricature the lithograph 'Riding over the eager populace', in which the large pear-shaped figure of Louis-Philippe travels across a French landscape strewn with the dead and dying— the products of the monarch's greedy and repressive misrule. The pear, playing on the pun in the French language where 'poire' (the word for pear) is also slang for 'fat-head', came to symbolize the paunchy, heavy-jowled King. The pear caricature was so successful and so damaging to Louis-Philippe that in 1832 it led the mayor of one French provincial town to forbid the posting of any signs which included the image of this fruit.

The audience for La Caricature and Le Charivari ranged from those with strong Republican sympathies to those who simply enjoyed a laugh. Both publications could be bought by subscription or from Philipon's shop and those who were not able to afford to buy them could visit the many taverns, cafés or reading-rooms which kept issues for their clientele. The latest caricatures published by Philipon were also on display in his shop window. The popularity of these caricatures meant that their impact was potentially enormous. Louis-Philippe could not ignore them and both Daumier and Philipon spent time in gaol. Philipon's printing house was frequently raided and the caricatures were confiscated by the police, acting on orders from above.

In 1835 the influence exerted by caricature prompted Louis-Philippe to introduce into the draconian September censorship laws a specific clause banning political opinions that were 'converted into actions by the circulation of drawings'. Philipon, however, had seen the writing on the wall and had already closed down La Caricature.

Philipon's other satiric journal, Le Charivari, was forced to modify its approach now that the types of drawings which could be published were restricted. Two days after the promulgation of Louis-Philippe's repressive censorship laws, Le Charivari explained to its readers that, although the journal had been gagged, its political views remained the same. Henceforth, its audience would have to read between the lines.

As his work was now required to be less overtly political, Daumier began to satirize the affectations, stupidities and greed of members of French society—the very people who supported the government. In hundreds upon hundreds of devastating caricatures, lawyers, doctors, bankers, landowners, merchants and other members of the bourgeoisie came under Daumier's critical eye.

Another of Daumier's strategies was to devise fictitious French types or characters whose actions were symptomatic of a repressive government. One such character was Ratapoil, a government secret agent and stooge who bullied and cajoled the unfortunate underdogs of French society.

As it moved towards social caricature, Le Charivari hired another artist, Guillaume-Sulpice Chevallier (1804–1866), who was known as Gavarni. Gavarni joined Le Charivari in 1837, at a time when his gentler, more sardonic forms of caricature were in keeping with the journal's new editorial policy.

Gavarni enjoyed French bohemian and street life as well as society salons, balls and theatres. This was the world which became the source of his inspiration, his 'prey'—he called it his 'contemporary comedy'. Until his departure for London in 1848, Gavarni produced a wealth of lithographs for the journal—lithographs in which he caricatured Parisian life and the city's inhabitants: the artists, the actresses, the prostitutes, the theatre-goers and ball-goers, the students, the strutters and strollers and also the city's poor.

Gavarni's relationship with Le Charivari was not always a happy one. After Philipon became less active in the journal, Gavarni came into conflict with the manager, Lévy, over questions of artistic freedom. In 1844 Gavarni refused to negotiate a new contract with Le Charivari. When he returned in 1846, however, he enjoyed greater artistic autonomy. Over the next two years he produced a large number of lithographs, outstanding for their psychological nuance, their detail, their acute sense of irony and the quality of their draughtmanship, as, for example, in the wonderful cavorting figures in 'Air: Larifla!' ('Highspirited Air!') from the second series of Impressions de Ménage (Domestic Scenes) published in 1847.

Gavarni's figures did not have the same political overtones as many of Daumier's social types. Until his last years at Le Charivari, much of his work was more gently mocking than Daumier's, as if he were a recorder of the lives of friends or associates rather than a forceful critic of French society.

Jane Kinsman
Curator, International Art