Publish at January 12 2014 Updated February 11 2026
These online resources give you a better understanding of press cartoons, caricatures and editorial drawings.
A Bibliothèque nationale de France exhibition on Daumier, presented in Paris in 2008, has been extended virtually and is still available on the BnF's Galeries virtuelles website.
This exhibition is made up of texts and illustrations, some of which can be explored in close-up thanks to their high-definition digitization. Information abounds on the artist's technique, the themes he tackled, and the censorship he faced at different times in his career, as the political regimes of the day changed.
On Les héritiers de Daumier, links are made with more recent caricaturists and newspapers (notably Le Canard enchaîné, Hara-Kiri and Charlie Hebdo) whose illustrators have endeavored, it says, to reintroduce the subversive force of press cartoons into the game of news commentary, to show the grotesque or grimacing face of the world.
We'll be highlighting the characteristics common to the drawings of different eras: the use of pastiche of works known to all, the metaphor of play and the figure of power, the invention of
characters such as Ratapoil, le Grand Duduche and le Beauf'. Recurring themes are presented and illustrated: attachment to freedom of the press, equality of men and women, political power, school.
A number of teaching ideas and illustrations are provided on different aspects of the exhibition: biography and historical background, Daumier and photography, Daumier as seen by Baudelaire. A number of activities are suggested in this teaching pack, which can be used and adapted in the classroom to deal with the attacks that have sadly claimed the lives of cartoonists in particular.
Guillaume Doizy, historian and director of Caricatures&caricature.com, a website dedicated to the history of political caricature and press cartoons, gave a lecture on the subject at Beaubourg in 2008, the text of which can be found here, on the very rich website ofEIRIS, the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Satirical Images (Université de Bretagne Occidentale).
The site includes many full texts of articles published in the annual magazine Ridiculosa. The illustrated texts present particular cartoonists or themes, image-makers from around the world and from different eras. In the Foreign Cartoons section, for example, you'll find Caricature and Politics in Cameroon from 1974 to 2008, American Cartoonists' Reaction to September 11, 2001 and Argentine Drawings in 1940. There is also a bibliographic database on the satirical image, and pages of links to cartoonists' websites and interviews with artists.
In a short interview with Radio France, Guillaume Doizy discusses militant political cartoons and censorship. The specialist cites examples of kidnappings, disappearances and imprisonment of cartoonists.
Sources
Cartoons & caricature:http://www.caricaturesetcaricature.com/ [accessed January 12, 2015]
Eiris Équipe interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l'image satirique: http://eiris.eu/ [consulted on January 12, 2015]
Interview with Guillaume Doizy and Jean-Dominic Leduc, Désautels le dimanche, Radio-Canada (January 11, 2015): http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/desautels_le_dimanche/2014-2015/ [consulted on January 12, 2015]
Interview with Guillaume Doizy - Radio France - https://www.radiofrance.fr/personnes/guillaume-doizy
Daumier and his heirs, Galeries virtuelles de la BnF
https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/societe/medias/00b6e921-4288-469f-a4f1-1739f0f1d72e-image-dans-presse-dessins-photos-caricatures/personnalite/b5d9ca54-fb1e-4579-8713-bf0e358d0877-honore-daumier
Images: Screenshots, Daumier et ses héritiers virtual exhibition, BnF, home page and "Gargantua".
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