Honore Daumier

A French Artist, Born 1808 died 1879, not too long of a life, easier to remember one might think...
He was a realist
His early work consisted of portraits, mostly graphite or lithographs, political caricatures and political cartoons

This newspaper ad shows two men on the street, dressed relatively nicely, one wears a top hat, carries a cane and is walking his little stupid looking dog.  The cobblestones on the street are detailed near the figures, then disappear into the background.  The man on the right is bent forward in an exaggerated gesture, almost a bow with extremely straight legs. Two men talk in the background.

This lithograph shows a murder scene, a man lies fallen off of his bed, two other men on the ground, dead also, the bedclothes hang off as pulled, the man is foreshortened with his legs facing the viewer, his neck bent up.  Very detailed, but a smoothness to his lines is evident.  This is developed in his later oil paintings.

Such as this, 1850 painting called the burden.  Here, he has let go of his precision in detail, focusing more on movement and gesture.  The child runs in the mother's shadow, obscured by the darkness. His face is nothing more than three small dots.  The woman's arm and neck are exaggerated, not naturalistically rendered. She is bent forward, her hands little more than two shapes pressed together, the light illuminates her breast and her bundle of things that she carries.