Incensed by 19th-century political cartoonist Thomas Nast's criticisms, Tammany Hall's Boss Tweed once complained, "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles; my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures."
The New Haven engraver Amos Doolittle also had great faith in the power of his patriotic cartoons, suggesting that one of his anti-British works "will have a tendency to inspire our countrymen with confidence in themselves, and eradicate any terrors that they feel as respects the enemy they have to combat."
In recognition of the first presidential election of the third millennium, the Yale University Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition tracing the emergence and continued popularity of political caricature.
Titled "The Body Politic: The Evolution of Political Satire in Print," the show features 46 examples of political caricatures drawn from the collections of the Yale Art Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art and Wesleyan University's Davison Art Center. The show continues through Nov. 26.
Satirical images have existed in all cultures for hundreds of years, yet political satire is a relatively young strain of pictorial lampoon, according to Elisabeth Hodermarsky, acting curator in the gallery's Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, which organized the exhibit.
Political satire first emerged in 18th-century England and quickly took hold throughout the western world. Mass-produced in newspapers, magazines or broadside illustrations, these caricatures have traversed the barriers of nations, oceans, language, religion, and economies to communicate their biting messages, notes Hodermarsky.
The exhibition begins with several precursors of political caricature, including a woodcut titled "Three Monkeys Imitating the Laocoön," created circa 1545, by Niccolo Boldrini after a design by Titian.
The focus then turns to "the golden age of English caricature," featuring such works as "Four Prints of an Election," William Hogarth's series deriding the partisan politics of a 1754 Parliamentary campaign, and later, more personal ridicule of British and foreign leaders by James Gillray and Isaac Cruikshank. Other examples from the 1700s include selections from "Los Caprichos," a dark series of etchings executed by Francisco Goya at the turn of the century, which target the Church and nobility for the wretched conditions prevailing in Spain.
During the 19th century, the center of political satirical printmaking moved to France, as illustrated in the exhibit by satires of Louis Philippe as the "pear king" by such popular artists as Honoré Daumier and J.J. Grandville, as well as works from later in the century by Edouard Manet, Félix Vallotton, Henri Rousseau and others.
Across the Atlantic, political satirists from the American Revolutionary War through the 19th century borrowed a graphic vocabulary of images, gestures and compositions from Britain, often turning their adopted vocabulary back upon Britain in farcical lampoons of John Bull, says Hodermarsky. Doolittle's engravings and Nast's works are featured in this section of the display.
The exhibition concludes with several 20th-century images: a group of broadsheets by the Mexican artist José-Guadalupe Posada that use dark humor to mock cultural changes and events in Mexico City; lithographs by George Grosz; Red Grooms's screenprint "Bicentennial Bandwagon"; and two of Andy Warhol's screenprints of Mao Tse Tung.
The items on view in "The Body Politic: The Evolution of Political Satire in Print" are accompanied by in-depth labels written by Yale scholars. "In the true spirit of a democratic body, many knowledgeable persons came together to discuss and write collectively and separately about the nature of political satire," says Hodermarsky. "I am grateful to Diana Brownell, Richard Field, Douglas Fordham, Pamela Franks, Brennan Gerard and Elise Kenney for making this such a substantive campaign."
In conjunction with the exhibit, there will be gallery talks by Douglas Fordham, a graduate student in the history of art, on Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 2 p.m. and by Brennan Gerard, a Yale senior and intern in the department of prints, drawings and photographs, on Thursday, Oct. 26, at noon. In addition, Paul Bass, a reporter and editor at The New Haven Advocate, will give a talk titled "That's Not Funny!" on Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 12:20 pm. All these events are open to the public.
The Yale Art Gallery, located at 1111 Chapel St., is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 1-6 p.m. Sunday. It is closed Mondays and major holidays. A wheelchair-accessible entrance is at 201 York St. For taped general and program information, call (203) 432-0600 or check the gallery's website at www.yale.edu/artgallery.
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