Daumier and Millet, two of the most important French artists of the mid 19th century, each produced drawings that were innovative and influential. This book by Bruce Laughton - a critical and comparative study of these drawings - investigates the artistic relationship that existed between Daumier and Millet. Laughton suggests that the two worked at a critical phase in the development of drawing as a language of expression in French art and that a study of their work reveals how new methods of conception and perception in drawing came about.

By combining Daumier's drawings with selected examples of his paintings, prints, and bronzes, this book traces the evolution of the artist's succinct and emphatically expressive style from its roots in the European tradition exemplified by Rembrandt, Rubens, and Fragonard to its modern manifestations in the works of Degas, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Beckmann. In the course of his long and productive career Daumier returned again and again to favorite themes, often after considerable lapses of time. Thus the works here are grouped by their subject matter into six sections: studies of individual figures and faces; narrative scenes inspired by history or literature; views of contemporary urban and domestic life; dramatic portrayals of lawyers in court; depictions of street performers; and episodes in the wanderings of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Reproductions and text present critical commentary on the artist and his work.

The life and work of one of the most productive and renowned French artists of the nineteenth century is examined in this beautiful book. Known primarily in his own time for the penetrating social and political commentary of his cartoons, Daumier is now equally admired for his drawings, watercolours, and oil paintings. Bruce Laughton draws on new material to present the most comprehensive treatment of this multi-faceted artist in two decades. Laughton traces Daumier's professional life: his early career as a lithographer-cartoonist, when his fame as a social satirist spread through all classes of French citizens; his attempts to change direction as an 'artist-peintre' with the advent of the Second French Republic; his painstaking production of watercolours for connoisseurs (and his simultaneous parody of these people); and then the independent development of his oil painting techniques alongside his continued production of lithographs and designs for wood engravings. Laughton also discusses Daumier's private life, investigating, for example, his view of the lawcourts, the significance of his 'Saltimbanques' or wandering entertainers, and the personal symbolism of his images of Don Quixote. In conclusion Laughton describes Daumier's late career, which included both personal disasters and artistic achievements and ended in the most unsung retirement of any artist of comparable stature in the nineteenth century. An appendix to the book provides transcriptions and commentary on five of Daumier's account books, which give clues about how he lived and how his works were regarded.

Accompanying an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art last fall and now at the Dahesh Museum in New York, this catalog focuses upon the French drawings in Muriel Butkin's highly specialized collection which she has promised to the Cleveland Museum. To assemble her diverse yet nicely integrated set of drawings, Butkin started buying 18th-century French drawings when they were affordable. In the mid-1970s, with the guidance of art historian Gabriel Weisberg, she expanded her collection to include 19th-century French drawings. These drawings were counter to the mainstream impressionist and postimpressionist taste of the time and focused more on academic French subject matter such as life drawings, portraits, or compositional studies. In the preface, Butkin herself reinforces her taste by saying that drawings are much more personal and spontaneous than paintings, often demonstrating the artistic process. Foster, curator of drawings at the Cleveland Museum, and other scholars present a well-researched volume that contributes new information to a very specialized field of art history. It is greatly disappointing, however, that the bulk of the reproductions are in black and white, often missing the subtly colored tones in many of the drawings. Nonetheless, this is recommended for museum and academic libraries that support graduate programs in art history. 183 b/w illustrations