Honoré-Victorin Daumier (French, 1808-1879) Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou, ca. 1860 Oil on wood panel, 11 1/4 x 7 3/4" George B. and Jenny R. Matthews Fund, 1964

Honoré-Victorin Daumier (on-or-ay veek-tor-an dough-me-ay) began his artistic career as an artist painting Biblical and mythological scenes. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, he began to focus on the world around him, stating that, "one must be of oneÌs own time." For this reason, he (along with Gustave Courbet) is put into the art historical category called Realism, meaning that he chose subject matter from the real world and real life.

Daumier made his primary living through caricatures and cartoons of the social and political world of his times, a practice that sometimes landed him in jail. He preferred painting, but his representations of everyday life were not as popular as his cartoons. The paintings are more serious and reflect his interest in all levels of society. Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou reflects a scene he saw every day outside his apartment on the Ile St. Louis: women with their children and bags of laundry climbing or descending the stairs that led to the laundry boats on the Seine River. Although he showed laundresses in several paintings, Daumier never portrayed them actually washing the clothing. He painted them instead struggling up or down the stairs with their heavy loads of wet laundry, or fighting the strong wind that often blew along the docks.

In this painting, the woman helps her child, who carries the laundry paddle, with one hand. Under her other arm she holds the bundle of clean, wet clothes. The two figures are unidentifiable—their features are hidden, and their bodies are silhouetted against the lighted forms of the buildings across the river. The dreary and hard life they lead is symbolically contrasted with the easier, more privileged life of the people living in the bright, large houses. The woman is meant both to be realisitic and to serve as a symbol; although she bears the burdens of a poor life, she will survive.

— Mariann Smith

SUGGESTIONS FOR HANDS-ON AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

• Have students think about social problems in today's society. What types of jobs do the poorest people have? What types of jobs do the rich people have? Ask each student to choose one job from each list and illustrate a person doing it.
• Using the same list of jobs, ask each child to pretend that he or she is one of those people. Have students write a creative essay that follows that personÌs activities from when they wake up in the morning to when they go to bed at night (or wake up at night and go to bed in the morning). Include details such as what they eat, clothing they wear, who they talk to, and how they feel.
• Give students a white sheet of paper and a black sheet of paper. Use the white sheet of paper as the background and the black sheet of paper as the foreground (meaning the black goes on top of the white). Cut figures and shapes out of the black paper to create a silhouette collage. Have them use regular pencils to create details in the background that help to describe the setting for the picture (i.e. cityscape, landscape, seascape, etc.).
• In the past, children had very different lives than they do in the present time. How children were treated varied according to culture as well (and still does, to a certain extent, today). Choose another culture (such as Native American, Asian, or African) and research with your students what life was like for their children in the past.