July 27 is the tenth anniversary of the death of gifted cartoonist Richard Thompson. His tragic death at age of 58 was a great loss to the field of illustration as well as a personal loss to the many friends and admirers who loved him dearly.
I always enjoyed Richard's sketch of presidential candidate and business executive H. Ross Perot, one of the very first in a line of plutocrats convinced that their business savvy qualified them to govern everyone else. Richard drew this for The New Yorker.
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| H. Ross Perot |
If I've said unkind things about the quality of the drawing in The New Yorker in recent years, it's partly because Richard proved to me that even after hundreds of thousands of spot illustrations by hundreds of thousands of illustrators, these images need not be boring and formulaic. They can be fresh and insightful and creative additions to the text, even improving upon the text.
We miss you, Richard.
21 comments:
There is a compendium of 100 years of New Yorker cartoons. Over the first half the drawing is perhaps predictable but of unvaried solid competence. The drawers could draw, and it was expected of them. Then there enters style for the sake of style and things come unstuck. And by now the drawings of the New Yorker cartoons are at best mediocre and most of the time abysmal.
Richard Thompson was a genius. Thanks for remembering him.
I just re-read all of your posts on Richard throughout the years, especially the one from 7/27/2016. His absence deepens and grows, but so does his legacy, thanks to reminders like the showcase you've curated here of the place he occupies in modern illustration as the historical door closes on a dwindling remainder of fierce untamed talents that forged a brilliant array of "beautiful ungainly pictures".
Thank you for keeping that door open a bit longer David.
"...a line of plutocrats convinced that their business savvy qualified them to govern everyone else." As opposed to the more common ones convinced that a law or poly sci degree from a sufficiently prestigious university so qualified them? Thompson would be an equally great cartoonist without the politics of the commentary.
Agreed. I have the 25th, 50th and 75th Anniversary New Yorker collections on the shelf behind me. I feel no urge to buy the 100th. Bad enough comparing the Steig of Small Fry with the later Steig. The days of Addams, Arno and Hokinson are very long gone.
It's a funny, loose caricature, even as vicious and hateful as it is. But propaganda like this is surely the lowest form of art. Is this kind of lampooning good politics? Did it help the American worker or family? A whole bunch of southern and midwestern towns were gutted by NAFTA which Perot opposed, despite the claims that it was more or less neutral with respect to U.S. jobs. (see: lies, damned lies, and statistics) Perot also clearly foresaw what has happened to the debt in the years since he hammered away at its dangers while campaigning. We are currently paying three billion dollars a day in interest, and spending money that isn't ours. Of course, Mr. Thompson isn't to blame. After all, he was just hating who he was told to.
~ FV
A fine artist. I’ll always appreciate a reminder and to revisit his work. Thanks.
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Postmodern Anonymouse
I think it would be.a mistake to suggest that Richard Thompson was "hating who he was told to," or that he hated anyone. He did brilliant caricatures of Bill and Hilary Clinton too. I think your objection may be to the nature of parody itself.
I recently had occasion to write a history of caricature, and addressed why it is, by nature, subversive. Born in 16th century Italy, by the eighteenth century it had spread throughout Europe and was particularly flourishing in England where artists such as William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson, and James Gillray expanded its scope, both artistically and politically. Politically, artists discovered that exaggeration in caricature was an effective way to communicate messages instantly to wide audiences who could not read. Hogarth in particular laid the foundation for future generations of narrative satire by creating engravings that criticized corruption, vice, and social inequality. He used caricatures to attack government corruption or unfairness in ways that required no words. Because caricatures in this era ridiculed government, caricature itself developed a reputation as a subversive tool, a graphic weapon for social and political satire. That reputation still lingers today. Laudatory caricatures only really began in the 20th century when magazines like Vanity Fair broadened the subjects from politicians to celebrities.
I think we're all had enough subversion by now, thanks. Most people are more interested in picking up the pieces of our culture and putting them back together. Not screwing up the country any further. Subversives don't have limiting principles. Leftist subversives in particular are all about the free speech and dissent and mockery... up until THEY gain power. And then they crush their enemies with relish, and don't you dare say a word against them.
~ FV
FV--While I agree that we're in need of more coherence (and tolerance and patience) I think the point of caricature is that satire and humor are better ways of making a political point than anger and violence.
Caricature as a medium first became popular as a form of “confrontational pictorial journalism.” The 19th century was marked by periods of social unrest, particularly in England and France where workers felt oppressed by the industrial revolution and its economic dislocations. Pictorial journalism sprang up in unauthorized and unstamped publications, which were the only response available to the people. The first mass circulation illustrated magazine, The Penny Magazine, was launched in 1832. Another magazine La Caricature, founded in 1830, only ran until 1835 when the targets of ridicule imposed censorship and brought the magazine to a close. But caricature couldn’t be suppressed for long by governments. It bounced back as a popular art form in the mid 1860s in popular resentment of Napoleon III and of other repressive leaders. Then and now, being ridiculed in drawings is a better fate than being led to the guillotine. You can tell a lot about leader by whether they can stand being the target of a joke.
The drawing, as a standalone piece, does not plainly caricature the politician’s actions, policies or ideas. Were it not for a few particular details, the exaggerated features would merely ridicule in an entirely traditional, cartoonish manner. But the combination of the brute forced smile and the discordant slant of the eyebrow on the right elevates this from being merely a Spitting Image-like tool for further use and need of situational context. The drawing does not linger on facial features to ridicule, it accentuates the face of the tenor as a mask, and as such, not only demystifies the power of the politician but attempts to reveal his true nature - as the artist understands it.
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Postmodern Anonymouse
>>>>"I think the point of caricature is that satire and humor are better ways of making a political point than anger and violence."
There's no political point to making fun of how a politician looks. Or exaggerating his looks to the point of ridiculousness. It's the same as name-calling. It can be funny, but don't mistake it for content.
~ FV
As Peterson noted, over time the propaganda content of art utilized for political purposes fades as the heat of the political moment fades. And with enough distance the art starts "winning" in the allotted attention field. But what a slog to reach that tipping point.
Vanishingly few people will enjoy art - no matter how good - that they believe is propagandizing against their preferred world and for the detestable evils that they fear and loathe.
To restate Howard Pyle's contention once more; what makes art stand the test of time as a beautiful, uniting communal force is its human universality. Politics is the opposite of that; now, then and forever.
As Peterson noted, over time the propaganda content of art utilized for political purposes fades as the heat of the political moment fades. And with enough distance the art starts "winning" in the allotted attention field. But what a slog to reach that tipping point.
When do you imagine Pyle’s Revolutionary War imagery will reach this tipping point?
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Postmodern Anonymouse
Pyle's revolutionary war paintings - which are works of poetry as much as history; with a strong additional emphasis on individual human grit - were painted roughly 130 years after the war ended.
Class notes from Pyle et al advised students working on historical subjects to read deeply on the subject, and to really understand the people involved, and then to go after a truthful statement of the experience of the events in the work. And in order to do so, it was advised to take the perspective of participants. And to even try to experience what their lives were actually like, if at all possible. In other words, to imagine battles from the inside; at ground level. And to re-enact the lives of those depicted to whatever degree is possible.
I say this in full knowledge that there are those who think every work of art is propaganda and that every act is political, etc. Not only don't I agree with those people, but I have little respect for that position either culturally, morally or intellectually.
Pyle's revolutionary war paintings - which are works of poetry as much as history; with a strong additional emphasis on individual human grit - were painted roughly 130 years after the war ended.
Well, it wouldn’t have been a revival movement if it hadn’t occurred after the fact. Add in the obvious relation to Delacroix’ Liberty Leading the People», and it’s fairly plain to see that there is some ideological momentum at work, even though it might not be overtly propagandistic.
Tangentially, I think this idealization of the ordinary man was all too soon recuperated by the hegemony of new royalties. Now, only nostalgia remains.
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Postmodern Anonymouse
"Well, it wouldn’t have been a revival movement if it hadn’t occurred after the fact."
Not sure which revival movement you are speaking of. Pyle was completely fascinated with American History from childhood and not only researched it diligently of his own accord, but also wrote books on it. And he worked on American History paintings for the entirety of his 35 year career both of his own accord and on assignment. He passed this love on to several of his student who continued this strain of his interest into mid-century. The interest in our history and its depiction was abiding. Pyle once said he had projected himself into the American Revolutionary period so often and at such imaginative depth that he came to feel a kind of homesickness for it.
"Add in the obvious relation to Delacroix’ Liberty Leading the People», and it’s fairly plain to see that there is some ideological momentum at work, even though it might not be overtly propagandistic."
Pyle painted and drew many dozens of Revolutionary War era subjects, and I don’t think any of them were allegorical. Pyle was in fact, adverse to allegorical pictures and only thought a few to be worthwhile. I think Delacroix’ Liberty is a bad picture, overtly propagandistic, stiff and false, and I’m not sure which pictures you think Pyle did that might be influenced by it, let alone “obviously” so.
"Tangentially, I think this idealization of the ordinary man was all too soon recuperated by the hegemony of new royalties. Now, only nostalgia remains."
I’m not sure where you got this idea that the Pyle mode was “idealization” of the ordinary man. Whatever the subject, whoever the character, the goal was to invest yourself in their being and their world such that you might, with sufficient imaginative projection, deliver their experience truthfully, clearly, and poetically. If one was depicting a King or a pauper, a knight or a pilot, hillbilly or debutante, private or general… the remit was the same. You must live as the character in their world in your imagination in order to properly convey their experience to the public.
I might very well have a exaggerated impression of Pyle’s actual role in the era’s cultural pushback against urbanization and industrialization, but in my schema he belongs to a particular nostalgic and romantic tradition that forge/mythologize the american self.
Regarding the Delacroix connection, did Pyle paint a lot of generals in his war paintings? Again, my knowledge here doesn’t run too dep, but my inpression is that he focused on the gritty everymen. No kings, no Napoleons, just men - and their revolutionary spirit.
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Postmodern Anonymouse
Kev Ferrara wrote: " there are those who think every work of art is propaganda and that every act is political, etc. Not only don't I agree with those people, but I have little respect for that position either culturally, morally or intellectually."
If we define "political" narrowly, I agree with you. However, broadly defined as editorial opinion of the artist, I think it is an important ingredient of a picture and in the case of caricature, inescapable.
Caricature requires an artist to start from a traditional, representational image, and then distort or exaggerate that image to reflect the artist's input. Over the centuries, the distortions and exaggerations in caricatures progressed from mere funny faces intended to entertain (as in ancient Egypt or Greece) to more sophisticated statements about a subject's moral worth, or to reveal important truths about their personality, character or emotions. The distortions of nature came to serve as an important means of social commentary. We should recognize that the expression of political opinions is just one small subset of these broader observations and distortions.
FV may be correct that it's a low use of caricature to attack a policy for "dealing with midwestern towns gutted by NAFTA." But Daumier's exaggerated busts of jurists and bureaucrats, old and wizened or gluttonous and jowly, low foreheads or stubborn jaws-- these are every bit as artful as the character descriptions in a Dickens novel. And it's only an inch away from these... let's call them "editorial" opinions rather than political opinions... to Howard Pyle's stereotypes of scruffy pirates. From there, it's only another half inch to Pyle's heroic, glamorized portrait of Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence. (As caricature became popular it helped to spawn a new vocabulary, including words such as “types,” “stereotypes” and clichés.”)
So yes, excessive politics in art can have a deadening impact but a lot depends on how we define "political."
I am in agreement that art is rife with authorial "comment" and that it must be thus. If we wanted objectivity we'd take a photo. I don't see how this can be characterized as political in any necessary sense.
I do not agree that Pyle's Jefferson writing the Declaration by candlelight is "glamorized." I think what you are responding to, if I may, is the excellence of its creation as a work of Imagistic poetry; the breadth of form-handling, the mood, the beauty of the drawing, the effect of the candlelight, the composing; and maybe you have sensed Pyle's subtle poetic comments along the way. (Prior to the reign of current-day George Lakoff types, Metaphor was understood to be a subliminal comment, not something easily picked out for intellectual delectation. A trope through which you feel a meaning rather than think it.)
That the Pyle method requires the artist to come at the scene from the inside of the point-of-view character to bring the deepest authenticity of person-hood into the narrative, and to seek after universal emotions common to all of us, it seems to me, is the very thing that keeps it distinguished from propaganda in its dedication.
However, surely, anything can be used as propaganda. But that is a different matter, outside intrinsic expression or artistic intent. That gets us back to interpretation and re-contextualization.
We can impose upon art any number of personal perspectives. One person says everything is politics, one says everything is about sex, one says everything is about the divine, one says it’s all about power differentials; we hear of status plays, inequality, privilege, othering, hegemony, patriarchy, and on and on. The Manichaeans says “silence is violence”… so even a piece entirely innocent of politics is rendered guilty for not entering the grand grotesque game. The literal mind only sees content, the decorative mind only sees pattern prettiness, the hyper-modern mind only sees visual games, the Jungian sees archetypes. And what of it?
I’ve said many times that I can only vouch for the period of aesthetic arrest in pictorial viewing, wherein the viewer is under the spell of the artist. Afterward the wayfarers of art interpretation will list the ship of internal state toward the shoals of their personal compulsions come hell or high water. And so it goes.
>>>>>"in my schema he belongs to a particular nostalgic and romantic tradition that forge/mythologize the american self"
Do you belong to a particular nostalgic and romantic tradition that forges and mythologizes the communist or socialist with respect to the imaginary international collective? And the imaginary collectivist utopia? Or is it only national identities that are romantic myths in your telling?
~ FV
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