The Reading c. 1857

Honoré Daumier painted "The Reading" with oil on canvas, a traditional choice, yet he used it to capture the spirit of everyday life. The rough texture of the brushstrokes gives a sense of the immediacy of the scene, two men sharing a moment over a book. The darkness of the pigment is heavy, not jewel-like, but dense and earthy. The painting looks as if it were made quickly, with a gestural approach that values capturing the moment over laborious refinement. Daumier's background as a printmaker, creating images for mass consumption, is relevant. His focus was always on the lives of ordinary people, not the rich and powerful. There is a kind of labor embedded in the scene itself; reading as a form of self-improvement, of solidarity. The heavy darkness from which the figures emerge hints at the wider social struggles of the time. Daumier elevates the everyday through attention to the ordinary, creating a vital and enduring image.