Daumier Rue Transnonain

From Art and Politics Paper: Honore Daumier, a defender of the urban working class, created a lithograph entitled Rue Transnonain that had as shocking of an impact as Goya’s The Third of May. The title refers to a street in Lyon where an unknown sniper killed a civil guard in an area where the government force was trying to repress a demonstration by the people. The shot had come from a workers’ housing black. The remaining guards stormed the building and killed everyone inside.

With power similar to Goya’s, Daumier created a view of the violence from a sharp angle of vision. He did not depict the moment of execution, but chose rather to depict the aftermath. The lines themselves are broken and scattered, much like the bodies themselves. This print follows the trend of the period: using facts as subject (Kleiner 858).