Aux Champs-Elysées, Ratapoil. Par suite d'une délibération philantropique [sic] du Comité du dix Décembre...à deux sous à club...deux sous... 12 - 1851

Curator: Daumier's lithograph, "Aux Champs-Elysées, Ratapoil," was created in 1851, part of a series targeting political figures of the time. The stark lines give it an immediate air of sly satire. Editor: Satire indeed. Look at the furious scribbles marking his figure. You get a sense of cheap printing technology, quickly produced and widely disseminated to stir up sentiments about a rapidly changing world. What exactly were the sticks supposed to mean, material-wise? Curator: The "gourdins", or clubs, I think act as instruments of oppression in this image. Ratapoil himself—what a striking figure of manipulation! Daumier pulls heavily from Commedia dell'Arte archetypes for such political commentaries. There is something both burlesque and genuinely menacing in the distortion, his club is practically an extension of his corrupt intention. Editor: "Corrupt intention" is quite an abstraction! It’s important to note that prints such as this were cheaply made. Mass production meant they reached an unprecedentedly broad public audience, a significant step in the rise of a kind of modern visual political discourse. Graphite on paper is easily obtained; these things matter. How accessible this critique actually was. Curator: Yes, the reproducibility absolutely amplified Daumier’s critique. Ratapoil stands as an emblem. The shadow he casts on the "well-meaning" bourgeois fellows he recruits becomes nearly palpable. Those empty expressions feel symbolic, puppets on strings following someone like him to enact their personal or social aspirations of sorts. Editor: It’s fascinating how such a mass-produced image attempts to dissect individuals through their perceived material and social desires. They, too, participate in the same circuits of exchange—the club for the support. Curator: I suppose this reveals much about what we want and what images come to represent regarding this pursuit for status. It also suggests we remain vulnerable to demagogues if those social hungers turn sour. Editor: Perhaps seeing a figure like this represented is a first step toward greater consciousness? Or perhaps it merely confirms our suspicion about the corruptibility of society, providing a material form to already hardened beliefs. Curator: A fittingly cynical note, perhaps. Still, looking at this now, one can begin to feel a similar vulnerability being described today. Editor: Well, whether insight or self-confirmation, examining Daumier's craft certainly allows a deeper questioning.