The Arcades Project - Operi

people could raise themselves, as from a pedestal, in vigorous beauty . ... A grotesque
distortion must . .. result when the bourgeoisie is viewed from the angle of
such ideals. Daumier '8 caricatures were thus the almost involuntary consequence
of a lofty ambition that failed in its aim of attunement with the middle-class public
. ... In 1835, an attempt on the life of the king!l presented an . .. opportunity to
curtail . .. the boldness of the press, which had been publicly blamed for the deed.
Political caricature became impossible . ... Hence, the drawings of lawyers done
in this period are . .. by far the most passionate and animated. The courtroom is
the only place where pitched battles can still be waged in all their fury, and lawyers
are the only people in whom an emphatically muscular rhetoric and a professionally
dramatic pose have made for an elaborate physiognomy of the body." Fritz
Th. Schulte, "Honon Daumier," Die neue Zeit, 32, no. 1 (Stuttgart