Goya and Daumier Comparison - 1282 Words

I have found the realism arts to be very fascinating. The three pieces of art that I will be discussing are Francisco Goyas The Third of May, 1808 oil on canvas 8ft 9 in. x 13ft 4in, Eugene Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, 1830 oil on canvas 8 ft 6 3/8 in. x 10ft. 8 in. and Honore Daumier, Fight between Schools, Idealism and Realism, 1855 Caricature The painting The Third of May, by Francisco de Goya, was done to commemorate the events of that took place during the Napoleonic Wars in Madrid, Spain on May 2 and 3 1808. The painting sets the scene of a man about to be killed by a firing squad. The bodies of those who have already been killed are scattered around him, and those that wait to be killed stand in line behind him. The†¦show more content†¦His art represented the reaction against previous conceptions of art and the desire for a new form of expression. In order to understand the scope of Goyas art, and to appreciate the principles which governed his development and tremendous versatility, it is essential to realize that his work extended over a period of more than 60 years. The importance of this factor is evident between his attitude towards life in his youth, when he accepted the world as it was quite happily, in his manhood when he began to criticize it, and in his old age when he became embittered and disillusioned with people and society. The world changed completely during his lifetime and the society, in which he had achieved a great success, disappeared during the Napoleonic war. Long before the end of the 18th century Goya had already turned towards his new ideals and expressed them in his graphic art and in his paintings. Daumiers made paintings and drawings of morals and manners that are highly original both in style and subject. He added contemporary Parisian types, lawyers, politicians, businessmen, professors, doctors and the petit-bourgeois to his list of subjects. He also continued to attack the government regime and any form of society that he found pompous or hypocritical. Daumier is among the outstanding draughtsman of the past two centuries. His skill in drawing links him to the Old Masters, but he was also much admired for his ability to use