THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGEDaumier brought the same con-
victions exhibited in his graphic work to his paintings as well, espe-
cially after 1848. His unfinished Third-Class Carriage (FIG. 30-31)
provides a glimpse into the cramped and grimy railway carriage of
the 1860s. The riders are poor and can afford only third-class tickets.
While first- and second-class carriages had closed compartments,
third-class passengers were crammed together on hard benches that
filled the carriage. The disinherited masses of 19th-century industri-
alism were Daumier’s indignant concern, and he made them his
subject repeatedly. He showed them in the unposed attitudes and
unplanned arrangements of the millions thronging the modern
cities—anonymous, insignificant, dumbly patient with a lot they
could not change. Daumier saw people as they ordinarily appeared,
their faces vague, impersonal, and blank—unprepared for any ob-
servers. He tried to achieve the real by isolating a random collection
of the unrehearsed details of human existence from the continuum
of ordinary life. Daumier’s vision anticipated the spontaneity and
candor of scenes captured with the camera by the end of the century.30-31Honoré Daumier,Third-Class
Carriage,ca. 1862. Oil on canvas, 2 13 – 4
2 111 – 2 . Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York (H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest
of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929).
Daumier frequently depicted the plight of the
disinherited masses of 19th-century industrial-
ism. Here, he portrayed the anonymous poor
cramped together in a grimy third-class rail-
way carriage.
30-32Rosa Bonheur,The Horse Fair,1853–1855. Oil on canvas, 8^1 – 4 16 71 – 2 . Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Cornelius
Vanderbilt, 1887).
Bonheur was the most celebrated woman artist of the 19th century. A Realist, she went to great lengths to record accurately the anatomy of living
horses, even studying carcasses in slaughterhouses.
802 Chapter 30 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1800 TO 18701 ft.1 ft.