Artnit

Četvrtak, 13 Maj 2021 15:54

Honoré Daumier's The Third-Class Carriage show a strange modern human condition - a "lonely crowd" Istaknut

Honoré Daumier's paintings were influenced by rail traveling themes and painted many images on a similar theme since the 1840s. The painting The Third-Class Carriage from 1862 is a depiction of the everyday life of the poor. This painting is one part of a three-part series of paintings by Daumier, including The First-Class Carriage and The Second-Class Carriage. The work can be viewed now at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The front of the painting The Third-Class Carriage shows three generations of the lower class. The family of four sits together in the opposite direction - a nursing mother, an elderly woman, a sleeping boy, and a baby. The family figures are drawn in larger proportion than their distance from the rest of the passengers would warrant, which gives them a more commanding presence. Their clothes, weariness of postures, and facial features, especially the worn-out expression on the grandmother's face show the struggles in the family's life. The positioning of the family represents their isolation from the other passengers and their comparative stillness in movement can be interpreted as tiredness. The family folds in on itself, isolated and absorbed in thought. The grandmother looks especially worn-out, her shrewd face confronts the viewer, hands were clasped onto a basket. The mother with her child and the boy look innocent.

The highly detailed background takes up more space than the foreground. The figures in the background are of a relatively high social class from their clothing. These people talk animatedly amongst themselves. The upper third of the painting is left blank, which suggests a space that is cavernous when it comes to height, but very cramped when it comes to length.

The painting The Third-Class Carriage is unfinished, so Honoré Daumier's true intent cannot be known. The color palette is gloomy, from the brown color in the background to various shades of brown, black, and green that Daumier has used to start on the passenger's clothes. Gloomy tones emphasize the gloomy atmosphere. Light reaches through the windows on the left creates a contrast to the gloomy tones. It illuminates the family, but the window is very far from them, symbolizing their distance from possibilities. The lines are simple and powerful. The lines in the curves expressively deform the shape, which is visible especially on the hands of a woman with a child.

Pročitano 1555 puta Poslednji put izmenjeno Petak, 14 Maj 2021 11:49

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