Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa
One of Daumier’s favorite themes was Don Quixote, whose life continually fascinated him. At the time of his death, Daumier had completed 49 drawings and 29 paintings of Don Quixote, which was one of the most famous piece of literature from the Spanish Golden Age, and a founding work of Modern Western Literature. The themes of Don Quixote, those of inventiveness, quick thinking, and deception, permeated society, and have been used by many other artists and musicians, including Picasso and Strauss, including Daumier. Perhaps in Don Quixote Daumier was able to find himself in a literary hero, as he saw himself in a quixotic struggle with the society which he so loved to satirize.
