Family on the Barricades

In addition to the realist Coubert and French landscape painters, Honore Daumier is one of the significant representatives of 19th century art that preceded impressionism. This artist’s creation presents the destiny of modern man on several levels. Family on the Barricades is a response to the 1848 revolution events; Daumier began working on it in 1848 and returned to it during the 1850s. The head of an old man in the centre with an appealing expression on his face is dominant in the painting. The tense vividness and dramatic escalation, also typical of Daumier’s prints and sculptures, is implemented here.