1866
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Exercises de l'hercule prussien is a 1866 ink by Honoré Daumier, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This lithograph shows a bulky strongman bent under sacks and ropes, straining before a crowd in a big top. Daumier uses bold lines to make the man’s muscles bulge and his face twist in effort. The audience looks on, some bored, some wide-eyed—it’s funny yet tough. Daumier often mocked power and pretension in his cartoons. Here he targets Prussian militarism, poking fun at brute force parading as skill. The lampoon feels sharp even today. Check out another Daumier, Honoré.
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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