1834
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Rue Transnonain, April 15, 1834 is a 1834 by Honoré Daumier, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a dark room where a man lies dead on the floor, his nightshirt twisted around him. A child is crushed beneath him, and an old man sprawls nearby. The scene feels still, like the moment after violence. Daumier made this print to show what really happened on Rue Transnonain. The government tried to hide the massacre, but he drew it anyway—no heroes, just ordinary people killed in their beds. It was risky work; prints like this could land you in jail. Look up the technique called *impasto*—thick paint that stands out from the canvas—to see how other artists made their anger visible.
Although it supported the French middle class, the government of Louis-Philippe (1773–1850) oppressed workers. The rebellion of the silk weavers of Lyon, who toiled 18 hours a day for a pittance, touched off a sympathetic revolt in Paris. During the uprising, sniper fire directed toward government troops emanated from a house on the Rue Transnonain. In retaliation, the soldiers indiscriminately massacred residents, including old men, women, and children. In this haunting image, Daumier focused attention on the human suffering and loss of life, emphasizing the innocence of the victims and the…
Although government censors approved publication of this print, they seized it upon its exhibition in a Parisian print shop.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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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