1868
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
La rentrée is a 1868 ink by Honoré Daumier, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
Daumier’s *La rentrée* shows tiny, cartoon-like figures marching toward a school door. Their big heads and small bodies look silly next to a stiff, grand woman blocking the entrance. It pokes fun at how schools and rules treat kids like little robots rather than people. The artist carved sharp jokes into stone with a special printing trick. He used a block covered in greasy ink, pressed it to paper, then wiped the block clean to reuse. Each print came out slightly different. This dark, sharp style feels like his other political cartoons. See more of his prints at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
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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