Walking into the Davison Art Center Gallery, one of the first things you see is a black and white rendering of a giant pear being strung up in effigy. The pear dangles from the rafters of a barn where it has been hoisted by three terrified-looking men; the richly shadowed fruit looms over them with an ominous concupiscence. A few pictures down the wall, we find the King of France cowering in bed between two Cherokee women, goblin-like hags who fawn girlishly over him, their sagging flesh tattooed from head-to-foot. On the adjacent wall, cartoonish characters hold a séance over a top hat, as the hat’s owner looks on morosely.
At first glance, “Satire and Society: Honore Daumier and French Lithography” looks more like a bad trip than an homage to an artistic medium. Lithography, a printing method invented by the Germans in 1798, was introduced to France in 1815 after the fall of Napoloeon. Many of the pictures in the exhibit, especially those produced by Daumier, are darkly absurd, their surrealism bordering at times on the grotesque. Daumier, a prolific printmaker and caricaturist, adopted lithography as a medium for his social and political satire, which was published in comic journals like “La Caricature” and “Le Charivari.” Although Daumier’s satire had a number of targets, from the Parisian bourgeoisie to modern fashion, the artist was most known for his relentless lampooning of the “Citizen-King” Louis Philippe, who ruled until the February 1848 Revolution. Daumier continued his parodies even after being imprisoned, although he began representing Louis Philippe in a more oblique way — as a pear, because, as fellow lithographer Charles Philipon pointed out, the king had a pear-shaped face.
Other artists in the exhibit, which includes such luminaries as Eugene Delacroix and Theodore Gericault, take on broader subject matter in their work, from landscapes to literature. The exhibit also presents a variety of lithographic techniques, the potential of which is most strikingly displayed in a triptych of Delacroix lithographs that employ “manière noire,” a method, the exhibit explains, in which lines are rendered in light rather than shadow. The most dramatic of these is “Macbeth,” a dark, moody rendering of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the witches. Other highlights include caricaturist Paul Gavarni’s works, depicting gender-bending and drunken debauchery, as well as some breathtaking pictures of French cathedrals, wherein the shimmering Parisian light is captured in an almost pointillist style.
Still, the bulk of the show belongs to Daumier and his incisive, irreverent, and, at times, cruel lithographic satire. The exhibit plaques are adept at explaining the context for Daumier’s visual commentary, although a background in nineteeth-century French history is useful in decoding the intricacies of his representations. The exhibit also showcases Daumier himself, in light of all his ideology, humor and prejudices. Sometimes his derision is delightfully cheeky, as with “Socrates at Aspasia’s House,” which shows the ancient Greek philosopher dancing a drunken can-can in his toga. “The Handsome Narcissus” also pokes harmless fun at tradition, depicting Narcissus as a scrawny awkward teenager who seems to have been lifted out of a Mad magazine from the 1960s. There is also, however, an entire corner of Daumier lithographs that foreground his misogynous biases. In these, Daumier repeatedly asserts the prevalence of female adultery, mocks women artists as unskilled old maids and ridicules female socialists for their moral pretensions.
Taken as a whole, “Satire and Society” does not attempt to present a cohesive historical narrative or overarching cultural theme, but instead lays out a smorgasbord of subject matter, styles and cultural critiques, united by their common artistic medium. In this way, the exhibit affords a glimpse into specific moments of (and perspectives on) nineteenth-century French society — flashes of insight that continue to resonate in modern satire and popular representations.
“Satire and Society” was organized by students in ARHA360: Museum Studies, taught by DAC Curator Clare Rogan in spring 2007. The student curators are: Matt Alie ’08, Arjuna Balaranjan ’07, John Beeson ’09, Amanda Duch ’08, Juliet Falchi ’08, Hannah Freece ’09, Alaina Gibbs ’09, Megan Kretz ’07, Sarah Leonard ’09, Emily Shechtman ’08, and Arielle Silverman ’08. The exhibit will be on display at the Davison Art Center until March 6, 2008.
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