Many thanks to Jo Jo and Steve Worth for turning me on to Jean Sennep, the funniest 20th Century French cartoonist I know of. That's his work above. Sennep must have been the king of the French class clown artists. I defy anyone to look at his best work without laughing. It can't be done.
Sennep did a lot of political caricatures. In the example above I don't know whether he was satirizing a real sex scandal or whether he simply decided to draw perfectly normal targets in drag in order to make them look ridiculous.
Hitler was said to have seen a caricature Sennep did of him and was furious. Yikes! Imagine having Hitler mad at you!
I looked up Sennep on the net and discovered that Sennep was influenced by an artist named Sem. That's his work above and below. The yellow wallpaper one looks like a parody of Lautrec's style. I have to remind myself that Lautrec was also a pen and ink cartoonist.
Sem (above) in turn was influenced by Cham. Who as Cham? Well, that's his work below. I'm guessing he was influenced by Daumier and Gilray.
Haw! Good old Cham!
I planned on writing a post about Sem and Cham but got distracted by all the period cartoons I was discovering while doing the research. I especially liked the ones dealing with dance (above and below).
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in that era!
If you can believe the artists, the crowded dance halls of that time could get pretty rowdy. The dance styles were increasingly flamboyant and insults, punches, bites, even riots would occasionally break out.
The funny thing is that before all those wild gyrations could take place, the dancers were still expected to engage in a caricature of upper class gentility. You had to demonstrate your refinement before hopping around like a kangaroo.
Maybe Van Gogh would have gotten a better reception from the peasants he lived with if he'd done some funny pictures of them first.
4 comments:
Have you ever thought of writing for "Wander Over Yonder" and "The 7D"?
I've seen these two shows, and I consider them excellent stomping grounds for your writing talents.
Anon: Haw! That would be fun but yesterday Cartoon Brew announced that Wander was just discontinued. That's too bad...it was an ambitious project. I'll ask about 7D. Thanks for the idea!
The poet Verlaine also drew caricatures of himself and his friends (not at nearly this level, of course). I think Verlaine's cartooning gives you a good idea into how he saw the world. For instance, when drawing Rimbaud, Verlaine emphasized his boyishness:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rimbaud4.JPG
https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c7569b8c7dfd86a9d31283915dd6c1e9?convert_to_webp=true
When you look at those drawings it is clear that Verlaine saw Rimbaud as a naive, effeminate young prodigy. Rimbaud was 17 when they met, Verlaine 28. I always found it weird that Verlaine would emphasize his youth so much, considering they were having an affair at the time...
Where Verlaine saw Rimbaud's country styling as signs of innocence, others didn't as you can see here:
https://julianpeters.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/images1.jpg
If it's helpful, this is a photograph of the pair:
http://www.prisonersofeternity.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rimbaud-and-verlaine-stand-x.jpg
Anyway, I think the psychology of it is interesting.
Mr. T: Wow! An interesting comment! I wish I knew more about Verlaine and Rimbaud. I don't speak French so I can only access their poetry through translation, which is probably inadequate. English speaking people who like their work often like Baudalaire (spelled right?) too but, once again, the translations I've seen weren't very appealing. I'll see if I can find translated spoken word versions of these three. Sometimes hearing something by a good reader can make all the difference. Thanks for putting me on to it.
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