A satirical lithograph by Honoré-Victorin Daumier from 1855, mocking the conservative public's reaction to the Realist paintings of Gustave Courbet.

This lithograph by Honoré-Victorin Daumier belongs to his series L'Exposition Universelle, published in the Parisian journal Le Charivari in 1855. Daumier, a master of social and political satire, captures the reaction of the bourgeois public to the works of Gustave Courbet. The scene depicts a group of gallery visitors, their faces contorted in expressions of disdain and bewilderment as they examine a catalogue. The caption, which translates to the title of the work, mocks the conservative art establishment's inability to reconcile with the raw, unidealised subjects presented by Courbet during the 1855 Exposition Universelle.

Daumier employs his characteristic loose, expressive line work to define the figures. The exaggerated features of the men in top hats and the woman beside them convey a sense of pomposity and narrow-mindedness. By focusing on the physical reactions of the viewers rather than the art itself, Daumier shifts the critique onto the audience. He exposes the hypocrisy of a society that demands beauty and refinement while ignoring the realities of the working class, which Courbet sought to represent. The lithographic technique allows for a sketch-like quality, where the hatching and cross-hatching create volume and texture within the figures' clothing and the crowded gallery space. This print remains a sharp observation of the friction between traditional aesthetic expectations and the emerging Realist movement in nineteenth-century France.