Literature Network » William Makepeace Thackeray

Pages of history: Daumier's political eye: Peter J. Beck describes the work of Honore Daumier, born 200 years ago this month, which provided an early visual documentary newsreel and commentary on the key political and social movements in mid-nineteent

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From: History Today
Date: 20080201
Author:Beck, Peter J.

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'A world of light that one would in vain look for in regular books of history' wrote the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray in The Paris Sketch Book in 1840, of the work of the artist, lithographer and caricaturist Honore-Victorin Daumier (1808-79). Daumier's caricatures offer a kind of nineteenth-century newsreel, presenting 'living' pictures of French politics and society with a propagandist message. His interpretation of events contrasts markedly with that provided by official documentary sources, offering a vivid, frequently critical, image of ...

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