1857
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Archimède riant des efforts ... is a 1857 ink by Honoré Daumier, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
Honoré Daumier shows an old man in a robe sitting on clouds. He wears a beard and laughs while looking through a telescope at a strange balloon-like shape far away. Daumier made this as a lithograph in the 1850s. Lithography is a printmaking method where ink sticks to wet stone, letting artists draw fast and bold. This one pokes fun at science and progress with humor. Daumier’s rough lines and big shapes feel almost like doodles. His work often mocked people in power—kings, lawyers, even scientists. Look up lithography to see how it works.
Honoré-Victorin Daumier was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870.
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