Le peintre qui a eu un tableau refusé ... c. 19th century

Honoré Daumier created this lithograph, "Le peintre qui a eu un tableau refusé..." or "The painter who had a painting rejected...", in 1859. Daumier made a career out of caricaturing French society, particularly the bourgeoisie, and the art world was no exception. Here, we see two men standing before a painting in an exhibition. One, presumably the artist, looks disheveled, and points towards his work, while the other, dressed in formal attire, critiques it. The caption reveals the tensions of class and artistic recognition, as the bourgeois gentleman remarks on the supposed horror of the painting. The artist retorts that the critic must be a friend of another painter, implying jealousy as the root of the man's disdain. This critique, made through satire, reveals Daumier's own experience of navigating the art world as a working-class artist. With biting humor, Daumier speaks to the pain of rejection, while shedding light on the often arbitrary and class-based nature of artistic taste.