cartoons and caricatures

This post is a record of the research I have conducted on the web for my project drawing. I have been looking at political satire especially political cartoons and the use of caricature in them. I will start with the history with artists like Da Vinci, Hogarth, Daumier and Monet

William Hogarth (10 November, 1697 – 26 October, 1764) is described in the Tate etc. website ( http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue9/hogarth.htm )as the grand father of political satire. Many of his inventions in this area are still in use today.

The author writes..." despite the horror portrayed - infanticide, drunken oblivion, disinterment of corpses, starvation, beggary, poverty, impalement, suicide, debt, debauchery and the collapsing buildings standing as metaphor for the collapse of society in general - it's also intrinsically funny...That's how satire works. You laugh almost despite yourself. The exaggeration is one of the triggers to make you laugh. Although we can pinpoint where Gin Lane probably was, it's doubtful that such scenes all happened together at the same time - hammering home the horror ad absurdum. And then that contradiction, the disjunction between horror and laughter, makes you laugh again. And then, with luck, you start thinking. That's exactly how today's political cartoons operate." They are incredibly detailed etchings and I think works of art in their own right. His cartoons inspired the next generation such as Gillray and Daumier who commented on social issues.

Daumier

Gillray

The Prince of Wales paid a large sum of money to have Gillrays cartoon suppressed and its plate destroyed due to the likeness he depicted. Daumier was imprisoned for his work above by the king of france who is depicted as gargantua. Controversy goes hand in hand with political cartooning as in recent times with the Muhammed cartoons in europe. I have seen these cartoons and the most offensive thing I found about them (as Iam not Islamic ) was the blatant racism and lack of wit and humour that most political cartoons have or try to have. Searching around the White fungus website I came across the former cartoonist for the herald who was fired for his cartoon which had been "accidentally" put in by the editors. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4EnXGyrVJQ

Caricature is a big part of creating a successful political cartoon. Gillrays likeness of the king obviously cut deeply and the likeness no matter how distorted plays a major role in deciphering the image. Da vinci and monet made caricatures as seen below. With out knowing the face of the person depicted it is hard to gauge how succesful they are. Monet had a floushing career as a caricaturist in his early years.

"At fifteen I was known all over Le Havre as a caricaturist ... sought after from all sides and asked for caricature portraits ... an abundance of orders ... I was able to charge twenty francs ... if I had kept on I would be a millionaire today." http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/artexhibition-20634814-details/The+Unknown+Monet:+Pastels+And+Drawings/artexhibitionReview.do?reviewId=23389217

Monet

Da Vinci

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary says the word caricature comes from the Italian caricare: to load, and that it means exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics. I have trawled trough numerous websites and online archives and looked for free tutorials on
caricature and there isnt alot of good stuff. A couple I used and thought were ok are About Face
Entertainers http://www.aboutfacesentertainers.com/caricature/celebrity.htm which has some celebrity caricatures and Sports Cartoons http://http//www.sportcartoons.co.uk/cartooncourse.html
Which has a free caricature course. I never realised caricature was such a large buisness with conferences and parties hiring a caricaturist entertain at them overseas. Also computer
technology is being used more for creating them with lots of tutorials and software online. I remember seeing a TV program on Murray Webb whose caricatures are nationally known in which he said he know uses such technology to produce his images.

These caricatures were taken from the NewZealand Cartoon Archive which has a selection of historical political cartoons. http://www.cartoons.org.nz/index.htm

There is another element to the political cartoon which can add or remove from it and it is text. It is important to take care with the words in a cartoon. The New Zealand Cartoon Gallerey has an up to date selection of the countries newspapers political and socail cartoons with cartoonists such as Garrick Tremain.http://www.nzcartoons.co.nz/index.php These are the cartoons that follow the regular text and image format so often seen today.

Tremain

Remix

This Image I composed of 3 seperate images. One is myself dressed up as a Captain Cook figure and one is a photo of Mount cook and the other is a photo of a maori dude I found on google image search. I checked for copyright but found nothing so I went ahead anyway.

After cutting and pasting the three layers I made them black and white, Changed the contrast and brightness then used the variations tool to give them an old feel by adding a touch of red and lots of yellow.

I must admit this isn't really what we were supposed to do because we were supposed to use each learning session on the Adobe programs to build an image or movie from the combined elements from each session. I treated each class as an exercise in their own right and wasn't really happy with my outcome so I deleted them. As a result my image is solely a photoshop image.

I quite like it as it is supposed to be a parody of the first contact tensions between Maori and Pakeha early in New Zealand history. I was going to add text "A tense moment as Aoraki is renamed Mount Cook" but in the end I felt it didn't fit in aesthetically( fonts seemed to 'fonty'.) Back in the 90's Mount Cook was supposed to be re-renamed Aoraki during the Kai Tahu settlement but on a trip though twizel way I noticed the road signs are taking a bi-cultural stance on this issue. They refer to the mountain, and village nearby, as Aoraki/Mount Cook. So that is the conceptual element of this project; Drawing attention to the rediculous situation that our forefaters and mothers have left us in now. Much the same rediculousness happens with the national anthem being in English and Maori But I wont get started on that!!

Blogging this semester

As you can tell I have done stuff all blogging this semester. First of all I diddn't realise we had to but then when I found out we still had to I threw a minor paddy and refused to do it. A bit silly I know but my reasons are slightly valid. I wanted to put as much time as I could into sculpture as I really enjoy it and have been gagging for some time to get into it because its the major reason I came to this School. 2nd of all if you read my first post you will see that I am quite opposed to blogging because in my opinion its a collection of namby pamby, touchy feely opinions on everything by mostly unqualified voices. I have seen good blogs but it is a hard slog trying to find them and I usually come across good blogs by accident. Ironically here I am blogging, blurting my guts out for all to see but would you reaaly want to be reading this unless you had to!!!

Maniac story boards

These are the story bords our group used to record our video. They are pretty quick drawings but helped formulate what we were going to record.

Mainiac of the playground

hes a maniac, maaniac of the play ground.
and hes playing like hes never played befooore

Slide show

This is the final entry this semester. It has been a hard one. I have created a slide show of the hungry donkey at deer park heights. I didnt have time or a scanner at home to make the storyboard and classes have started in the lab so I didnt want to interrupt. Enjoy!

Maori and the sublime

http://www.romeartlover.it/Ceiling.html

I had a family reunion on the weekend and unveiled a carving my cousins and I had created with master carver James York. In my essay for theory I looked at the links between theories of the sublime in comparison to Toi Whakairo (the art of Maori carving). I came up with 2 links,the first in myth. Ngati Porou carving was retreived from the sea from Tangaroa's (god of the sea) magical whare (house) and this was similar to the theories of Giovanni Bellori's "idea" that art came from divine sources, the second that Baroque church ceilings were in effect the same as the whare whakairo (carved houses) due to their apparent movement, immersive environment and sublime effect upon the veiwer.