he wrote some of the silly dialogues to his plates.

Daumier was the artistic progenitor of the Caran d'Aches, the
Forains--who was it that called Forain "Degas en
caricature"?--Willettes, and Toulouse-de-Lautrecs. He was a political
pamphleteer, a scourger of public scamps, and a pictorial muck-raker
of genius. His mockery of the classic in art was later paralleled by
Offenbach in La Belle Helene. But there were other sides to his
genius. Tiring of the hurly-burly of journalism, he retired in 1860 to
devote himself to painting.

His style has been pronounced akin to that of Eugene Carriere; his
sense of values on a par with Goya's and Rembrandt's (that Shop Window
of his in the Durand-Ruel collection is truly Rembrandtesque). This
feeling for values was so remarkable that it enabled him to produce an
impression with three or four tones. The colours he preferred were
grays, browns, and he manipulated his blacks like a master. Mauclair
does not hesitate to put Daumier among the great painters of the past
century on the score of his small canvases. "They contain all his
gifts of bitter and profound observation, all the mastery of his
drawings, to which they add the attractions of rich and intense
colour," declares Mauclair. Doubtless he was affected by the influence
of Henri Monnier, but Daumier really comes from no one. He belongs to
the fierce tribe of synics and men of exuberant powers, like Goya and
Courbet. A born anarch of art, he submitted to no yoke. He would have
said with Anacharsis Cloots: "I belong to the party of indignation."
He was a proud individualist. That he had a tender side, a talent for
friendship, may be noted in the affectionate intercourse he maintained
for years with Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Dupre, Geoffroy, the sculptor
Pascal, and others. He was very impulsive and had a good heart with
all his misanthropy, for he was an idealist reversed. The etching of
him by Loys Delteil is thus described by a sympathetic commentator:
"Daumier was very broad-shouldered, his head rather big, with slightly
sunken eyes, which must, however, have had an extraordinary power of
penetration. Though the nose is a little heavy and inelegant, the
projecting forehead, unusually massive like that of Victor Hugo or of
Beethoven and barred with a determined furrow, reveals the great
thinker, the man of lofty and noble aspirations. The rather long hair,
thrown backward, adds to the expression of the fine head; and finally