Article
l'Enlevement d'Hélène (Abduction of Helen), published in Le Charivari, June 22, 1842 Honoré Daumier
The lithographs were intended for an audience that could decipher the network of allusions, which run the gamut from grand questions about the role of the classical heritage in modern France to parodies of specific individuals; viewers had to be familiar with both classical convention and contemporary caricature.
A reader of Le Charivari, recognizing Helen's posture in [l'Enlevement d'Hélène (Abduction of Helen)] from scenes of Hercules carrying away the Trojan princess Hesione, would appreciate the comic reversal of gender roles in this scene, and might also realize that while the setting and the postures of the figures are ancient, their features are not. This humorous combination of ancient subject matter and contemporary physiognomy underlies the entire Ancient History series. A viewer well acquainted with caricature might recognize Paris as an ancient regime fop sporting an eighteenth-century wig and Helen as a working-class girl; in such a guise, Helen's struggle to carry the lazy aristocrat on her back would take on an entirely new meaning.
The captions for the lithographs add another level of allusion, although they were not written by Daumier. The comic quatrain accompanying the [Abduction] of Helen describes the love-spent Paris's lassitude, and is identified as a quotation from a mock Aeneid by Mr. Patin. A professor of Latin poetry at the Sorbonne, Henri Joseph Guillaume Patin (1793-1876), an expert on Greek tragedy and a newly inducte member of the Academie Française, would never have treated the ancients so lightly. Le Charivari's writers set Daumier's lampoon in an even more specific and contemporary context.
A reader of Le Charivari, recognizing Helen's posture in [l'Enlevement d'Hélène (Abduction of Helen)] from scenes of Hercules carrying away the Trojan princess Hesione, would appreciate the comic reversal of gender roles in this scene, and might also realize that while the setting and the postures of the figures are ancient, their features are not. This humorous combination of ancient subject matter and contemporary physiognomy underlies the entire Ancient History series. A viewer well acquainted with caricature might recognize Paris as an ancient regime fop sporting an eighteenth-century wig and Helen as a working-class girl; in such a guise, Helen's struggle to carry the lazy aristocrat on her back would take on an entirely new meaning.
The captions for the lithographs add another level of allusion, although they were not written by Daumier. The comic quatrain accompanying the [Abduction] of Helen describes the love-spent Paris's lassitude, and is identified as a quotation from a mock Aeneid by Mr. Patin. A professor of Latin poetry at the Sorbonne, Henri Joseph Guillaume Patin (1793-1876), an expert on Greek tragedy and a newly inducte member of the Academie Française, would never have treated the ancients so lightly. Le Charivari's writers set Daumier's lampoon in an even more specific and contemporary context.
