“- Aren't you getting dressed? - No... I remain like this in my swimming gear all day long, outside the swimming pool. - Even in winter? - Then I put on my hat!,” plate 28 from Croquis D'été 1858

Curator: This lithograph by Honoré Daumier, created in 1858, is plate 28 from his series titled “Croquis D'été”. Editor: Immediately striking. It has such a strong sense of implied line and cross-hatching to give form and shadow. The contrast makes the scene so dramatic! Curator: Indeed! The technique amplifies Daumier's critique of societal norms, highlighting the leisure class during the Second Empire. The print depicts a conversation between a man and a woman by what seems to be the water’s edge. He's sitting in his bathing suit. Editor: And look how Daumier uses repetition—vertical lines of the trees contrast with the horizon in the background, framing the exchange between the figures. It’s all about relationships of forms in this compressed pictorial space. Curator: And in those relationships, we can unpack commentary about gender and class. Notice the woman's skepticism, perhaps suggesting a discomfort with the man's nonchalant disregard for social expectations, even to his statement that he'd wear only a hat in winter! Daumier constantly challenges bourgeois values, questioning these performative behaviors of leisure. Editor: Precisely, but notice how the economy of the lithographic line speaks to the ephemeral nature of these interactions. Daumier is suggesting their flimsy reality through the very medium he has selected. Curator: You're right. There is such powerful social commentary in what some may simply brush aside as only caricature. But here it's also this beautiful dialogue with its temporality of mark-making. Editor: Well, in examining these relationships and artistic choices we find a discourse emerges around the complex relationship between class, art, and lived experience. Curator: Absolutely. I think it’s crucial we continue questioning such societal structures—perhaps this print still has great resonance today.