Famous for his political and satirical cartoons, Honoré Daumier was also a painter and sculptor. His paintings have an unmistakable aspect, at once solid and active, built through a blurred yet precise impasto. His ability to describe the movement and casual attitude of a crowd on an urban street comes from his sharp graphic work. In this oil panel, figures in the foreground examine prints for sale outside a shop. A boy takes a peek into a closed portfolio, while a young man in black closely studies a print representing a woman with children (probably a work by Daumier). Behind them, a worker in a simple cap has turned a concentrated, serious gaze toward another image. Daumier is describing the power of images, the lure of art, as a democratic and shared passion.

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   “In Paris everything is a spectacle: no other people in the world have had such voracious eyes.”
—Honoré de Balzac, French novelist

   Prints displayed in a street-side print shop attract the attention of passersby. Some peer with earnest intensity, others gaze with mild curiosity. A young boy gingerly leafs through a giant portfolio as another child strolls by, barely registering interest. In this small painting, Honoré Daumier examines the act of looking through the varying degrees of those represented, the animating gaze of the artist, who was also a keen observer of Parisian street life, and our own attentive scrutiny.

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