Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

This version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, dated around 1866 and held at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, shows the two companions in the characteristic open landscape Daumier associates with their wanderings. By 1866 Daumier had returned to the subject many times, and this version — in the collection of one of the major institutions of German Realism — represents his sustained meditation on the relationship between idealism and pragmatism embodied in Cervantes's pair. The Alte Nationalgalerie's collection of French Realism, which includes major works by Courbet and Millet, places this Daumier in a strong European Realist context. The work's composition varies subtly from other versions in the emphasis given to landscape versus figure, to the relative positions of horse and donkey, and to the emotional atmosphere created by the specific handling of the sky. Each Daumier Quixote has a slightly different emotional tenor, as if each return to the subject discovers a new aspect of its meaning.

The Berlin version reflects Daumier's mature painterly freedom, with loosely applied paint in the landscape contrasting with more specific handling of the figures. The proportional exaggeration of Quixote — very tall, very thin — against Sancho's compact form is maintained as a fixed visual fact.