Divertissement qui devrait être interdit ... c. 19th century

Curator: Looking at this print by Honoré Daumier, dating to the mid-19th century, titled “Divertissement qui devrait être interdit…” which translates to "A pastime that should be forbidden...", the mood is… well, delightfully catastrophic. Editor: The medium here grabs my attention: a lithograph, probably worked with graphite as well, cheap and mass-producible. See how Daumier utilized that to circulate these potent jabs? It screams of accessibility and broad critique. The materiality is key to the political message, it's art *as* dissent. Curator: Exactly! It's less a polished history painting, and more a visual op-ed. Note how the figures are rendered – grotesquely caricatured, especially their faces and elongated limbs. The one sprawled on the ground, he really seems to have come a cropper. He is surrounded by gawking onlookers; the context really invites one to reflect on the theater of power and politics. There is a lovely economy to it. Editor: Right, economy in both the artistic execution and social commentary. The man on the ground and the ones trying not to fall--their clumsy contortions suggest the fragility and absurdity of political maneuvering and those shoes! It points to not only commentary about politics, but about the society that upholds the stage on which they stand! You know, the crowd gathered, they look the same... almost mass produced! Curator: Daumier cleverly employs the crowd and the public in a double sense - both audience to, and complicit in, the spectacle, highlighting a lack of originality in public opinion as a political lever. There’s an odd beauty here—in the satirical exposure, a poignant rendering of the ludicrous. Editor: Absolutely. Even the slight variations visible would’ve pointed towards to hand craftsmanship--and that direct connection to critique *through* the making of the object itself becomes powerful social statement! Curator: The more I look at this "forbidden pastime," the more I appreciate its pointed, economical savagery, coupled with Daumier's wonderful skill to say so much with what appears to be so little. It is deceptively subtle, this material. Editor: Deceptively so, revealing so much with just lines and tones. Art like this—focused on process, the making itself—becomes a crucial social record beyond just aesthetic enjoyment.