1870
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Un cauchemar de M. Bismarck is a 1870 by Honoré Daumier, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This odd print shows a sleeping woman slumped in a chair. A demon squats on her chest, grinning. A horse with fiery eyes rears above them, its mane like smoke. It’s a political cartoon from 1870. Daumier used a gillot press on newsprint to mock France’s leaders—here Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor. The demon is satire, not myth. Look up chiaroscuro to see how the dark shadows make the scene pop.
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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