Sense of Hearing. “- Wake up Nini!.... I have been calling her for more than an hour, and she always replies: yes Adolphe. But neither the child's name nor mine is Adolphe!,” plate 41 from Types Parisiens 1839

Honoré Daumier created this lithograph, “Sense of Hearing,” sometime in the mid-19th century. The eye is drawn to the cacophony of lines that define the scene, a domestic interior disrupted by sound. Notice how Daumier uses hatching and cross-hatching to create depth and texture, animating the figures and their surroundings. The composition is structured around a visual discord. The frantic father figure, with his exaggerated expression, contrasts sharply with the seemingly oblivious mother and the loudly protesting baby. Daumier uses line to convey the father’s exasperation; his angular features and agitated posture are set against the softer, more rounded forms of the sleeping woman. Here, Daumier uses the formal qualities of lithography to comment on social realities. The print becomes a semiotic field where domestic tensions are played out. The “Sense of Hearing” transcends mere illustration, offering instead a critique of bourgeois life through the sharp, unforgiving lines of its composition.