DRAWINGS THAT STILL AROUSE EMOTIONS

Can drawings still inflame passions today?

Anyone who doubts it should've attended the annual convention of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists last week in Durham, North Carolina.  Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes (of the Washington Post) described how she was swamped with outraged phone calls, emails and tweets  after drawing a negative cartoon about Ted Cruz.

 

Some of the comments she received were later quoted in The Columbia Journalism Review:

“You filthy kunt…a baseball bat to your head is now due."

“HOW FUCKING DARE YOU CUNT. GET THE HELL OUT OF THE BUSINESS…”

“Bitch, your days are numbered.”

“do the world a favor, go hang yourself”

“I hope you get raped to death”

It's a good thing Cruz's followers are so religious; otherwise those comments might've turned nasty.

Cruz supporters helpfully posted Telnaes' photo online so she'd be easier to identify.  In the face of this lunatic rage, the Washington Post chickened out and removed the cartoon from its web site, thus vindicating angry jerks everywhere.

Cartoonist Joel Pett (of the Lexington Herald Leader) told a similar story.   He entertained the AAEC audience by playing his voice mailbox filled with enraged calls about Pett's cartoon criticizing Kentucky governor Matt Bevin: 

The attack on Pett was boosted by right wing social media and went viral.  At one point Pett did a little dance onstage to the soundtrack of crazed callers threatening him with harm.

I checked with conservative cartoonist Scott Stantis (The Chicago Tribune) to see if he received similar hate mail from the left.  He described how a reader called his home to say that he hoped Stantis's children would be killed.  There are morons on both sides of the political spectrum, many of whom have trouble reading complex words but who understand (and resent) the power of pictures.

Once upon a time, editorial cartoons were thought to make a difference by educating the public and showing them perspectives that might change their minds or soften their positions.  Cartoonist Thomas Nast was credited with helping to bring down the corrupt Tweed regime that controlled New York in the 1860s and 70s.  His graphic symbols resonated with the public (he created popular icons, such as the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey) so much that he influenced presidential elections.  Tweed is reported to have cursed, "Stop them damn pictures! I don't care what the papers write about me. My constituents can't read, but they can see the pictures."

Judging from this year's AAEC convention, fewer readers today are interested in being educated and more are interested in reinforcing their pre-existing biases.  To achieve this, many seem intent on silencing opposing views.  Ironically, these are the people who need education the most.  People who once were embarrassed by their own ignorance seem willing today to take aggressive steps to preserve it.

In such a climate, my hat is off to today's editorial cartoonists.

RESPECT FOR ROCKS

Why did Maxfield Parrish spend so much time painting tiny crevasses in rocks in the backgrounds of his paintings?

 

Parrish was a fabulously successful illustrator.  He earned over $100,000 per year in an era when houses cost only $2,000.  His time was so valuable, you'd think he would've found a shortcut for the menial labor of painting tiny crevasses in dumb rocks. 

To get the proper "feel" for rocks, Parrish used to bring actual rocks into his studio, paint them a flat color and 
light them to accentuate their shadows.

The following detail from an original Parrish painting, photographed from 3 inches away, shows you how tedious it must have been for Parrish to paint all those damn crevasses:

Obviously Parrish decided that these details made an important contribution to his paintings, and that there was no simpler, faster way to achieve the effect he wanted.
 
Bernie Fuchs was another great illustrator whose time was very much in demand.  He was an economical painter who abhorred unnecessary detail.  Yet, he too seemed to believe that rocks in the background were worthy of his sustained attention.

There's nothing fake about these rocks; they required thousands of deliberately placed brush strokes.  If Fuchs tried to get away with random marks, we would've seen the difference.

This is not an issue of mere realism.  Fuchs wove more design into the details than Parrish did, but that was Fuchs's nature.

It's not necessary to paint rocks in great detail to be persuasive.   Illustrator Harold von Schmidt simplified desert rocks using black poster paint and a wide, flat brush:

 

Von Schmidt grew up spending a lot of time staring at rocks in the desert.

 

Like Parrish and Fuchs, Von Schmidt respected background rocks and put substantial thought into getting them right. As a result, they gave themselves to him in these wonderful drawings.

On the other hand,  when even talented painters disrespect rocks and attempt to fake it, as Frank Frazetta did in these two pictures, the rocks end up looking phony:

   

Frazetta put in the manual labor to draw tiny cracks in this wall but you can tell he wasn't looking at rocks when he did

Just like the rest of mother nature, rocks don't like being taken for granted.

ADOLPH MENZEL via JIM GURNEY

James Gurney is one of the most visually insatiable artists I've met. He is famously productive-- he draws and paints all the damn time.  If he gets trapped in a conversation too long, or if he has to wait in line to get his car inspected, his fingers get itchy and he feels compelled to haul out his portable watercolors.  When he looks you in the eye, you can't help but feel that part of him is measuring you from an artist's perspective.

Which is why I was particularly interested in Gurney's perspective on Adolph Menzel, the great German draftsman who felt similarly compelled to record everything he saw, everywhere he went.  Gurney's excellent new book on Menzel fills a great void by retrieving and publishing  drawings that have been hidden away for decades in an East German museum.

Menzel's obsession with recording worldly things enabled him to see the drama we might otherwise miss in a chest full of old documents:

Or to show us his respect for the symmetry and structure of a steel mill:

Menzel didn't put down his pencil when an acquaintance sat on the toilet:

Or even when opening caskets to help identify bodies:

Gurney's book contains a fascinating story about Menzel's 1873 expedition into a dark crypt beneath a garrison church to open old military coffins and identify the remains of the officers there. He drew these figures by lantern light.

But the thing that impressed me most about these drawings by Menzel is that the process didn't become mechanical for him.  He was not drawing out of mere habit.  After thousands and thousands of drawings, he still responded to the visual power of the world around him:

Gurney's large, thoughtful selection of images shows the full range of Menzel's drawing, and some I liked more than others, but they all make clear that Menzel was drawing for the right reasons.

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 51

This extraordinary drawing by John Cuneo has already been selected for inclusion in both of the upcoming annual collections of illustration art: The Society of Illustrators' Annual of American Illustration and the American Illustration Annual.  So why bother reproducing it here?

Because the drawing is immense but the annuals will reproduce it at a size that makes the figures look like an ant colony and you'll miss the entire point.   Here are some details worthy of your attention that you won't see any other way:



Cuneo is the only contemporary illustrator I can think of who draws animals on a par with the great A.B. Frost or Heinrich Kley.

This dog hanging from the ceiling shows Cuneo's strong sense of design:

I've been critical on this blog of the type of loose drawing that results from shortcuts or a careless attitude.  On the other hand, I think Cuneo is an excellent example of loose drawing with genuine strength and substance behind it.  You can really tell when an artist has paid his or her dues.

There are dozens of faces on this drawing, and some of them are freaky scary:

 

 

As with many of Cuneo's drawings, this one is rich with oblique references and dark symbolism.

I think this is a major work, but you'd never guess it from the tiny reproduction in the Annuals.  That's why I'm performing a public service by sharing some details here.