1864
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
L'eau est-elle bonne? ... is a 1864 ink by Honoré Daumier, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
Daumier’s lithograph shows a crowded public bath with people swimming and chatting. Their faces look silly on purpose, not real. The stone-wall edges feel sharp and flat. Daumier used a printing trick called lithography. It lets artists draw on stone with greasy crayons. Then they wet the stone and roll on ink. The ink sticks only where the crayon was. Try drawing on smooth stone yourself—it’s harder than it looks.
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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