British artist James Gillray is considered by many to be the father of the editorial cartoon.
Gillray worked in the late 18th and early 19th century, the age of Napoleon. He attacked the French relentlessly, and went at his own countrymen with equal ferocity.
My favorite Gillrays are his fashion parodies (above). Even men went for the wasp waist look, and everybody wanted to appear taller than they were.
Geez, I wish these pictures were bigger. The picture above won't enlarge, but about half of the others will, so give them a try.
He was a terrific caricaturist (above). and you know he would have been a good animator because he loved to caricature walks as well as faces.
It would have been fun to go with Gillray on his sketching tours of the parks (above). His focus was always on the people who visited the park, and not on the trees.
There must have been a lot of fat rich women (above) in Gillray's time.
Fat men, too.
Gillray wasn't the only British cartoonist of his day. Cruikshank and Heath (that's a Heath above) were contemporaries. You can see the influence that Heath had on Edward Lear, who came later.
This (above) is a beautiful picture when you see it large. It's full of movement and nice line. Gillray was an expert at etching, so he didn't have to pass his drawings on to an engraver the way some other artists did.
Haw!
He could be downright hilarious (above) when he wanted to be.
The Prince of Wales is said to have disliked this picture (above) so much that he paid to have the plates destroyed. It's beautifully composed.
More fashion caricatures (above). Is this picture by Cruikshank or Gillray? The two did park pictures that are almost interchangeable.
Anyway, catch the padded jacket and knee-high boots on the guy on the right. Wouldn't you like to see him do an animated walk?
Boy, Gillray caught that gloomy look that some Englishmen have. The pants of that day framed the crotch like a puppet theater and he caught that, too. But what's with the dainty little shoes?
Here he depicts a wealthy mother (above) who takes two minutes out of her busy schedule to breast feed her child.
Unbelievable (above)! This guy is SO funny!
Poor Gillray. for years he lived happily and prosperously with the woman who published his pictures... then his eyesight began to fail. When he found he couldn't work any more he made a botched suicide attempt which left him with injuries which may have driven him insane.
18 comments:
Hey Eddie! I'm working on a love letter to a cute librarian and was wondering if you could give me a critique since you're something of an expert on writing.
"Love is much like the rain, it comes and goes. It can always be counted on but not when you want it, and it can get in the way of your plans
Sometimes there are droughts that make me want to cry, and sometimes it storms onto you and you almost drown and are so happy that you would almost welcome death.
You look at me and give the traditional smile that is required for our informal relationship but behind it I see true love and admiration. You ask about my dog and make me feel good about myself, like I matter like anyone GIVES A shit about who I am and what my soul deserves out of this spinning blue dirtball that would be worthless without your uniqueness.
I memorize every nuance of your face and fantasize about an embrace. While I admit some of my fantasies are sexual in nature I mostly think about us sitting on the couch watching a movie as you smile and close your eyes and burrow your head into my chest while grinning contentedly and all feels right in the universe.
You are better than rain or love, the earth and all its atoms have no meaning next to you, my brain transcends matter thinking of your ephemeral qualities. You make me into something different that soars.
Destiny is a rare thing, most pass through their lives like sand in a generic hourglass in a forgotten warehouse. They have wives and children but in the end don't feel one tenth of a percent of the quality of emotion and searing PLEASURE/PAIN that those who open themselves up to reality and find a true soulmate can achieve.
The fact that I feel this way about you has assured myself that this is destiny, I know you consider yourself just another plebian with a menial job who is undestined for a beautiful life but my love will elevate you as you shall elevate me. We will live in isolation and spend each day contemplating beauty and end each night with a joyous post-orgasm sob and our children will grow up to be great men that imbued with the power of our love will cure diseases and lead nations.
I myself desire no achievements or accomplishments, only the accomplishment of owning your soul is what I desire. If you reject me the universe will have lost its purpose and I will be a shell of a woman.
Because I feel this way about you MUST mean that 4 dimensional cosmic subatomic forces (perhaps superstrings?) have been awoke and alerted and are using the interconnectivity of every atom and piece of energy in the universe to push us together. We are why the universe was created"
All of this is completely new to me. My education under Eddie's supervision continues!
Ha I was just messing with that love letter thing, I know it would freak any girl out let alone a cute librarian. Did it as a creative writing exercise
Wow. Great. Fantastic colors, too. Thanx for this, Eddie.
Pretty dang awesome. Illustrations like these seem ahead of their time in a huge way to me. They're hysterically rude in a time when the rules of formal etiquette would have made Emily Post look like a drunk in an alley. It's really interesting how in certain types of discourse you can get away with saying things you couldn't otherwise, like stand up comedy now, or these illustrations- he probably couldn't have written a newspaper article that says what that simple little picture of shoes and ankles says!
Actually at the time these cartoons were drawn society wasn't as buttoned-down and prissy as most present day people think--far, far from it in fact. It was much more openly bawdy, rude, lewd, earthy and liberal in a lot of things, including even some manners. Wild times.
There's a reason that the Victorian era gets the blame for putting the kibosh on sex and whatnot-it was a big backlash to the libertine, "embarrassing" times that came before.
Anyway--fun fun drawings!
Hah, as if the dandies and beau brummels of the time weren't cartoonish enough. And that spherical dowager is a riot!
Anon: That sounds like one of those computer-written letters. I wonder if there's a blog-writing program like that?
Jenny: True! Did you ever read Gertrude Himmelfarb on the Victorians?
Lester, Craig, Benjamin: Many thanks!
Charles: Ditto! Thanks!
No, Eddie, I'd never heard of Himmelfarb(I'd swear you made up that name! btw she's a.k.a...."Bea Kristol"?!) and just now looked her up on Wikipedia. Very interesting...I'll have to go to the lib. Any of her titles that you'd especially recommend?
The Victorians have their charms but I believe I'd much prefer to live in the era of Sam Johnson, myself. As a noblewoman of course.
Editorial cartoons in this era were not only well drawn but rather graphic. When they demonized someone back then, he always looked like some unhuman creature.
Jenny- I'm sure you're right, as I no doubt have an element of the "if it happend before the 60s, it was tame" preconception, even though I know better. I guess I tend to think about all of the moral outrage over Candide and similar works, and apply a blanket assessment of general priggishness to the whole time period, and probably a broader time period than really makes sense.
jenny: I thumbed through a couple of her books, but haven't read one. I saw her speak about the Victorians on BookTV and she did a great job of bringing out what was positive about the era. Definitely somebody I intend to investigate when i get the time!
The pose in the "in pursuit of fine arts" pic is hilarious.
This is the sort of stuff cartoonists should strive for. It's weird to look at the portfolios of artists who ostensibly want to be the next Don Martin or John K and their poses are all look like they're aspiring ancient Greek Sculptors
You can definitely see the influence on guys like Terry Gilliam and B Kliban
Those are hilarious and amazing!! Thanks for posting them, Eddie!
James Gillray inspires. I love the mixture of the illustrators mastery of human anatomy with a cartoonists' sense of caricature. He was so bloody brilliant. His drawings are very lively. Great post.
Everybody: Thanks a million for the positive feedback on Gillray! I'm delighted that a cartoonist who worked 200 years ago could still have a following in our own time!
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