The Rue Transnonian,
a piece done by Honoré Daumier in 1834 depicts
a graphic scene of the grizzly fate of a man in his night clothing. This picture
is supposed to portray the aftermath of a night raid on a building by King
Louis Philippe's Army. All twelve of the inhabitants of the building were
said to have been killed. It is more than likely that Daumier
never saw the scene of this massacre. The scene cannot be called a crime, because
the atrocity was committed by the police, but being the realist that he is, Daumier
made sure that the world would remember the incident as it truly was: a brutal
execution of ordinary men and women while they were readying themselves for and
during good night's sleep. Because Daumier most likely
did not see this event, it means that everything in the painting was put there
for a reason, and represents something in the eyes of the painter.
When looking at the painting, the first thing that one notices is the position
of the bodies in the scene. The other bodies are lying on the ground in pools
of their own blood. The main body of the main in the center is mostly on the ground,
but his head is propped up by the bed sheets. This is small aspect of the painting
is a metaphor for the fact that his decency was destroyed by this act of slaughter:
most of his body is on the ground, violated, while his head remains on the sheets
of the bed, reminding the viewer of the painting where this man has come from.
He has been ripped out of his bed as he slept, slain, and discarded upon the ground
akin to a dirty rag.
The next thing you
notice when looking at the painting is the agonizing detail of every part of the
painting, centering in on the man's face. His face is shown in the greatest detail
because Daumier wants it to seem as human as possible,
as much like one viewer of the painting as another: real enough so one wonder
whether or not that is someone he or she could have known. The reason for this
realism is that Daumier wants the viewer to see not
only that this person was normal, but that what happened to him could happen to
anyone. The graphic blood near the man's face adds to the feel of purity tainted.
After viewing this painting for more than a minute, one cannot help but hate whoever
caused these gratuitous murders. Of course everyone in Paris knew that it was
the king's men who committed the act of desecration, so the painting was directly
sending a political message: that the king and his followers were a bunch of oppressive
murderers, and obviously should not be ruling a great nation such as that of France.
The early 19th century was a time of revolutions, the recursive pattern of aggravation
by the monarchies and revolt lower class. This painting not only plainly shows
the what is going on in Paris, but the angry sentiment of the working class, which
is in itself a modern idea, because before this era artists had mainly made their
livings painting portraits of the aristocracy.
This painting caused
so much controversy because of its obvious and explicit message that the painting
itself became a symbol of revolution in France. After the painting was released
King Louis Philippe was so outraged that he attempted
to seize and destroy all copies of the painting in existence. His failure to do
so is a foreshadowing of the progression to come from monarchy to republic and
democracy.
The Rue Transnonian
was the next step in modern paintings; it was one of the first paintings in which
a fusion of modern style and historical content was employed.
