FINALLY
SOCIAL SATIRICAL ART IN THE’TOON AGE’
by
Alexander Petrowsky
After more than a century of being the underdog in commercial art, a mistreated art form is coming back in full strength. The social satire as seen in the English satirical print of the 18th century and its masters such as Goya or Daumier is experiencing a renaissance in this century’s newest movement in art: ‘toon art’.
INTRODUCTION
The role of cartoon or comic book imagery in our society is becoming more important every day. This can be best illustrated with an article in the International Edition of Newsweek,(1) which says that the world’s most powerful nation’s future military leaders are now required to study comic books. According to the article one of the requisite readings for West Point cadets graduating from the class of 2006 is “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi, a graphic novel about the Iranian revolution.
A similar development can be seen in today’s entertainment industry, one of modern society’s aspects most influential in shaping our culture and creating future needs and desires in our passive society. An extreme revival of comic book culture, a rapid growth of the graphic novel market, faster and bigger than anybody in a field that was once seen as a degenerate subculture could have ever imagined. Numerous movies based on graphic novel classics such as Spiderman, Hellboy, The Fantastic Four, etc., seem to be Hollywood’s new fad. The comic book industry is experiencing sales like never before. The U.S. market experienced a sales growth of $132 million from 2001 ($75 million) to 2004 ($207 million).(1) Simultaneously European bookstores state that comic books are their fastest growing category.
Art, by its very nature being a reflection of a culture’s developments, does not stay untouched by this development. Whether artist appropriate, create a distorted image of existing imagery, or create their own “characters”, comic book visuals have become an important part of today’s visual language (2). And this development is in no way limited to the United States of America, not even to the Western World, comic book derived fine art is a global trend. As a matter of fact different nations developed their own “toon art” individually, and are now influencing each other strongly. Probably the best example for this is the trend in Asian countries, especially Japan, where manga (comics) and anime (animation) have taken over pop culture. Their famous art exports Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara with their characteristic flat and colorful “cute” visuals have already gained cult status in the rest of the World.
As the boundaries between “high” and “low” art get blurred and forms of expression formerly employed solitarily by subcultures and commercial art forms like fashion design, graphic design, street art, etc. keep appearing on gallery walls, one thing becomes clear: we are rapidly entering a new era in contemporary art. What partially started about forty years ago with artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, who used commercial imagery as a critique on consumerism, has reached a range that will soon make it the predominant art form.
Since this relatively new stream in contemporary art has not yet found its way into art history books, it has not been given a name so far. I will therefore use the expression “toon art” that keeps reappearing in related literature.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SATIRICAL ART
In order to fully understand contemporary satirical artwork one has to see it in its historical context. The cartoon-like satire is nothing new; it dates back to Renaissance times, when artists started using caricature as a form of “counter-art”, rebelling against newly established ideals of beauty.(3) Leaonardo da Vinci explored the ideal type of deformity, the grotesque, which he used for insight regarding ultimate beauty, but which, in the long run, led to develop the discipline of caricature.
While caricature was established in Italy, cartoons came to existence in Germany as a consequence of Martin Luther’s Reformation using visual propaganda. Due to a high illiteracy rate simple posters illustrating shortcomings of the Catholic Church were the most practical means of communication to the masses.(3)
This seems to be the right place to define caricature and cartoon and to explain their differences.
A caricature parodies an individual and what makes him/her individual. At its best it shows a person’s inner self through lighthearted physiognomic satire, exaggerating physical characteristics.
The cartoon deals with groups and their characteristics. Cartoons often reflect how one class looks at another. Through time the cartoon took on more serious subjects and became a valid form of social commentary.
One of the prerequisites for cartoons, or satire in general, is a level of urbanity and cosmopolitanism, as well as a civilized target, that will understand the often subtle criticism raised in the cartoon.
The medium cartoon is tightly linked to the invention of the printmaking press, and though it can be found in other media, printmaking strongly influenced cartoons.
Satirical art experienced an expansion with the English satirical print in the 18th century, especially with its most known employer, William Hogarth. Hogarth’s detailed engravings and etchings of moralizing narratives, always including social or political critique, became extremely popular in England and soon spread all over the continent, exposing other artists to a new medium. The fact that they were prints was most certainly a factor that facilitated this fast expansion at a time where communication across borders generally took a substantial amount of time; prints can be created and distributed in large amounts in relatively little time.
Satire in print ultimately breaks through shortly after Hogarth in Spain with the “godfather of the satirical print”, Francisco de Goya, who had certainly been influenced by the English satirical print. A deep knowledge of the English prints’ vocabulary can be seen when Goya appropriates settings such as the barbershop (one often reoccurring stage for the English satire), uses similar poses and a similar form of caricature. While Hogarth’s work is supposed to teach moral though, Goya did not place himself above the society he criticized.5) In a letter to his friend Martin Zapater, he depicts himself extremely overdrawn, relatively close to his depiction of gluttony.
Goya’s most important series of prints, “Los Caprichos”, depicts negative aspects of society in an exaggerated, partially comical way, creating a semi-humorous social commentary. Aldous Huxley writes about his later works that they depict “a world of bad priests and lustful friars, of fascinating women whose love is a ‘dream of lies and inconstancy,’ of fatuous nobles and, at the top of the social pyramid, a royal family of half-wits, sadists, Messalinas and perjurers.”(4)
In “Disasters of War” he took Napoleon’s invasion of Spain as a new subject, creating depictions of the irrational beast mankind can be in wartimes. This series is certainly less satirical, but depicting similar cruelties on either side of the war can most definitely be seen as a political statement. It can also be seen as one of the first attempts of graphic journalism, a genre that is experiencing a revival now with artists like Art Spiegelman whose Holocaust reportage “Maus” has raised the public image of cartoons considerably. Another artist who cannot be left out in this context Is Joe Sacco, who with works like “Palestine” or “Safe Area Gorazade” has fully stepped into Goya’s footprints.
In the 19th century satirical prints became popular in newspapers, the medium became more mainstream and started losing its ‘high’ art status. Somewhere through mid 19th century early comic strips were invented – Wilhelm Busch created ‘Max und Moritz’, a series of illustrated poems that were executed in a way that every one or two sentences were paired with an image. At the end of the century the comic strip was a well recognized popular art form. As a matter of fact the comic strip experienced a boom with strips like ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’ or ‘Hogans Alley’.
With the 20th century the satirical print had completely lost its artistic status and existed solely in the form of comic books and newspaper editorial cartoons.
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF A NEW ART FORM
There are a number of overall aspects that works of this new genre “toon art” have in common; they could be seen as the defining criteria of “toon art”. Narrative, Humor, Relevance to society and life, Figurative elements, Absurdity, Abstraction, and wel designed Formal appearance;
Narrative
A narrative, defined or open, is a basis for “toon age art”, dictated by its medium derived from commercial art, the cartoon. Creating “toon art” without a narrative is almost as impossible as telling a story without a storyline, though the narrative can be extremely vague and only implied.
Three main ways of creating this narrative prevail:
The closest to the origins of the medium would be the use of frames, showing pictorial elements in a seemingly temporary manner. Changing details while simultaneously not changing other elements, such as the background, suggests a passing of time. In short, you show first things first and later things later.
Speech bubbles are another way to tell a story. This method is sparsely used by the contemporary art world, most probably because over time the “mute” cartoons seemed to be the more artistic ones. Language is still an integral part in this art form. Artists like Raymond Pettibon include words in their art, and eventhough they might not appear in the form of a speech bubble, they still function in a similar way. In fact Pettibon sees the writing part in his work as more important than the drawing aspect. (art 21)
An explanation why many artists are reluctant to use words in heir art could be that words define the narrative more strongly, while pictures function as a more loose form of “language”.
Artists have found a way to “smuggle” speech bubbles into their work by using titles that suggest that they are part of the narrative, or even dialogue.
The third means of creating a narrative is subtler and seems to be used the most. Gestures, looks, pictorial elements that suggest that something just happened, is happening or is about to happen can create a narrative in the viewer’s mind. When Laylah Ali engages her characters in ambiguous activities she uses this extremely open form of narration.
Humor is the second defining aspect of “toon age artwork”. Humor is a way artists show situations or thoughts that are not easily dealt with on a “serious” level, or that people are reluctant to address in a serious context. Humor makes it possible to present things in one way (a way that may be less offensive) and actually show them in another. Adam McEwen, NY artist, asked about why humor can be useful in the arts, answers: “it can destabilize a situation, in a split second, draw the viewer in or allow something else out.”
Subtle metaphors make you smile or laugh and then step back and say: wait a minute… and think.
John Currin says: “When I started making funny paintings, they felt deeper and more about heavy things, like death and sex and love, that I always wanted my paintings to be about. The sillier they looked on the surface, the more they seemed to contain these feelings.”(10)
I think that our world is so desensitized through imagery we see on the media every day that serious images do not make us think any more. We have grown used to accepting social injustice, cruelty, violence, etc. that we do not pay a second thought. Our society has become muted by the entertainment industry. We just look the other way and watch some more MTV, because that is what makes us laugh; to think only makes us more miserable.
Relevance to society and life is an aspect that is closely linked to the figurative aspect of “ton art”. Since most characters in cartoon history, and therefore in the art form that is based on that very history, mimic the general human shape, and with that I mean a really basic human shape made up of head torso and limbs, generally four, it is easier for us to (personally) identify with than with abstract shapes or conceptual ideas. This means that we can see ourselves possibly act out the storyline in a cartoon, even if only to a certain extent, whereas we definitely cannot see ourselves as a certain part of an abstract work, or a conceptual thought. The same happens on the creator’s side, where the artist is using a medium that lends itself best to depicting certain things. The medium of “toon art” lends itself best to creating a narrative speaking about the society its characters are based on.
Generally artists pretend to live outside of society, or at least in a position where they are detached enough to have a clear view of what is going on in that society, a position that allows for seeing through different eyes than the general public, usually more critical eyes, therefore so much “cartoon work”, reflecting our society, reflects certain aspects in a satirical manner.
Absurdity added to “cartoon language” as we know it from commercial artwork is another factor that defines “toon art”. Taking certain elements we are familiar with through the visual history of our society, and planting them in new, disturbing contexts is one means of creating satire in art. Some narratives you would expect in a cartoon setting, some you would not. By deliberately placing characters or narratives in an absurd setting one can startle the viewer and encourage thought.
Absurdity goes hand in hand with abstraction. Abstraction follows the idea of taking minute elements from comic book “language” and blowing them up out of proportion or repeating them to a point where these elements take on a new meaning because they can no longer be defined using their original context.
The last aspect is formal appearance. Using a medium that historically uses very dramatic imagery and composition, one cannot escape the use of similarly dramatic poses, an almost mythical importance of everything.
RELEVANT CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
Since there is an overabundance of “toon artists” and their number seems to be increasing on a daily basis, I have chosen to select a few exemplar artists and have those stand for the entire movement. I chose artists whose work is completely different from each other’s, be it in execution, ideas, style, etc. I want to present an array of “toon art” or art related to the movement, as wide as possible.
Artists I will present are:
- Barry Mc Gee
- Kara Walker
- Michael Ray Charles
- Walton Ford
- Raymond Pettibon
- Laylah Ali
- Yoshimoto Nara
Eventhough these artists’ work might be extremely diverse, and, at a superficial level, might not even be the slightest bit related to each other, they all share one quality. They bring this revival of social satirical art similar to the satirical print in England into being.
I will compare them according to two categories: subject matter and formal qualities. Subject matter because that will show whether the work can actually be compared to historical social satirical prints and whether it falls into the same tradition, formal qualities in order to point out how a similar concept changes over time, how contemporary politics and societal issues define the genre of satire.
Barry Mc Gee’s mural work has an extremely open subject matter; according to him his work depicts an “overload of the senses that one might feel walking down the street of any of our fine American cities”. Apart from this overload his work creates a feeling of social injustice and class awareness.
Concerning formal qualities, Barry Mc Gee uses a medium that is tightly interlinked with cartoon art – graffiti art. Working in galleries and on the street at the same time he blurs the line between “high” and “low” art, opening his work to a vast audience, talking to two classes, a “high” and a “low” audience.
Raymond Pettibon, an artist using a completely different formal approach, deals with a similar subject matter. Contemporary politics, political history, societal critique that is hard to put into a category, because it is so diverse, and the occasional one liner are his most prominent subjects.
Pettibon falls into this group of “toon artists” because he uses quick drawings combined with words; he might actually be one of the formally closest to cartoon work, always adding an extra twist in the accompanying text, which makes him follow the tradition of the satirical print.
Walton Ford is the one in the group presented who fits in not only through the use of similar issues, but also because he actually does some print work. Topics that appear in his work are related to contemporary politics, especially U.S. politics, historical politics that apply to present-day issues and social issues.
The artist creates extremely elaborate watercolors that mimic natural historical illustration, but always includes at least one disturbing element. Beautiful metaphors that superficially tell fables set in colonial times apply to present political situations like George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Ford makes you look, laugh and then think. He follows the historical tradition more formally than conceptually, I think his concepts are more elaborate and more intellectual than the average English satirical print.
Laylah Ali is an artist who emphasizes the “toon” in “toon art”. Her gouache paintings of genderless, raceless characters that are engaged in ambiguous situations reflect political and social issues. In a sense she created a visual language to speak about present day problems of our society.
Ali clearly falls into the group of cartoon inspired artists. She even developed her own set of characters to act out our issues in a new context. The “Greenheads” act out disturbing sceneries that are full of emotion and tension in a colorful pastel-world.
Formally her work is really plain, some of it follows the frame layout, there are a lot of dramatic gestures, looks, etc.; in short, she closely follows a cartoon history. Compared to satire in historical prints, her work follows that tradition by showing reality put into extreme situations, always remaining a sort of neutral witness.
Michael Ray Charles is another artist who indirectly deals with comic book imagery. He uses pictures derived from commercials, especially stereotypes that were created by early advertising. The role of the African American in today’s society is displayed through creating semi-absurd images.
Formally Michael Ray Charles takes imagery that is well known by the viewer – so did Goya when he used the barbershop scene derived from the English print - and uses it for his own purpose.
Kara Walker also deals with the picture of the African American in our society. She refers to a time passed, just like Michael Ray Charles, only she goes back even one step further. Colonial imagery put into absurd situations, that at a second glance might not be that absurd any more.
She uses another medium that is closely related to cartoons, the silhouette. Ina way you could see it as the colonial fashionable cartoon.
Yoshitomo Nara, the only one on the list who is from a different culture, one of today’s most influential Japanese artists, uses a similar visual language to all the other artists presented. His subject matter are the emotional experiences of early childhood and how they are translated into adulthood. Sometimes world politics appears to be like a group of little boys fighting in a sandbox.
Formally Nara is the closest to the cartoon medium. His rough sketch-like drawings remind of children’s book illustrations, and children’s drawings. He also works in three dimensional media, always using the same aesthetics though, mimicking collectable figurines and other commercial comic book merchandise items.
MY WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF ‘TOON ART’
Since all of ‘toon art’ seems to be defined by a handful of characteristics (narrative, humor, relevance to society and life, absurdity, abstraction, formal appearance), and I do consider myself part of this movement, I will apply all these to my work.
I use narrative in a relatively open form, I suggest stories of implied violence, be it physical or emotional. On the one hand I do not show frames or any sort of time measurement, images can be put into any order, leaving any plot entirely open to the viewer. On the other hand I do have defined characters though, the oppressed, the oppressor, and the neutral or passive. Thus, there is a certain level of definition, a defined set of characters, a vague idea of a story, and there is always the option to relate the images to contemporary politics and finish the plot by applying reality to fiction.
Humor in my work is superficial and is supposed to attract attention, so that heavier issues can be addressed more lightheartedly. I see the ‘funny looking characters’ with big glasses and odd posture as caricature, a depiction of what our society least wants to be – physically weak, old, obviously displaying signs of imperfection, uniform, etc.
This leads directly to the next criterion, relevance to society and life. I try to show unreal characters that are more real than we see ourselves as. We perceive our reality as some sort of colorful young MTV video; really we are nothing but dull imperfect routine loving passive players in an overly controlled society.
Absurdity and abstraction are addressed by the fact that all characters are extremely undefined and indefinitely repeated. There are no signs of individualism, everything seems artificial, no space and time frames exist, all in all my work depicts an absurd, abstract world.
Concerning formal appearance, I tend to have a minimal approach to depicting anything. I exclude things that are of no importance to the narrative; my pages remain untouched to a high degree. The less I draw or print on a page the more do I have to pay attention to composition, ending up with simple looking highly planned layouts.
CONCLUSION
All issues addressed by any of the artists mentioned above are very similar. They reflect contemporary politics, societal downfalls and shortcomings, racial and discriminative issues, all closely related to what printmakers were doing in the 18th and 19th century. Racial discrimination might not have been an issue, but other forms of social oppression based on class, status in society, heritage, etc. are almost the same topics. As much as is seems that societal issues reappear over history, the art world does react similarly to comparable issues.
Since the English print of the 18th century, Goya’s and Daumier’s work, etc. are both, formally and according to subject matter, so close to contemporary ‘toon art’, one can see this new stream in contemporary art as a renaissance of this old form of ‘cartoon art’. The way work is executed, the way concept is included in the work, and the way work is presented might be different, but essentially work addresses similar issues, criticizes to the same degree, uses the same vocabulary of the same visual language.
The print might not be the medium of the time, as it was in the 18th century, now we have other means of bringing a message across to a vast number of people. Social satire in its ‘older’ form is tightly linked to printmaking, because of the medium’s ability to be mass produced and spread easily, nowadays we can express ourselves in any medium and our work can be reproduced in a digital form with almost no restriction.
REFERENCES
(1) Foroohar, Rana. Comic Relief. Newsweek International. Aug 22. 2005
(2) Bloemink, Barbara and Clark, Vicky A. Comic Release: Negotiating Identity for a New Generation. 2003
(3) A Brief History of Political Cartoons. Mar. 23. 2006
(4) Spaightwood Galleries. Mar.14. 2006.
(5) Wolf, Reva. Goya and the satirical Print. Boston. 1991
(6) Godfrey, Richard. James Gillray-The Art of Caricature. London. 2001
(7) The Image of America in Caricature & Cartoon; Dallas, 1975
(8) Shesgreen, Sean. Engravings by Hogarth. New York. 1973
(9) “Caricature and Cartoon.” Encyclopaedia Britanica. 2006. Encyclopaedia Britannica Premium Service. 16 Mar. 2006
.
(10) Art in the Toon Age and The Story of Toons. 14 Mar. 2006
(11) Takashi Murakami. Journal of Contemporary Art, Inc. 2001
(12) Higgins, Ned. Cartoon Reality.. 2004
(13) Strickland, Carol. Artists ‘toon in. The Christian Science Monitor, Jun. 20. 2003
(14) Cassel, Valerie. Splat, boom, pow! : the influence of cartoons in contemporary art. Houston. 2003.
(15) Little boy : the arts of Japan's exploding subculture / edited by Takashi Murakami. New York : Japan Society, 2005.
(16) Art:21.Mar.23. 2006
(17) “satire.” Britannica Student Encyclopeadia. 2006. Encyclopaedia Britannica Premium Service. 16 Mar. 2006.
(18) D’Arcy, David. Art Spiegelman on Comics and Film. Green Cine. Nov. 18. 2005
(19) Yablonsky, Linda. What’s So Funny About Contemporary Art?. Artnews. 2004
(20) Smith, Roberta. Art Review; Retreat From the Wild Shores of Abstraction. The New York Times. Oct. 18. 2002
(21) The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. May 2. 2006
A thesis submitted to the College of Webster University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of
M.A
May, 2006
St. Louis, Missouri
©Copyright by
Alexander Petrowsky
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
(2006)
The author hereby grants to Webster University permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part for educational purposes.
by
Alexander Petrowsky
After more than a century of being the underdog in commercial art, a mistreated art form is coming back in full strength. The social satire as seen in the English satirical print of the 18th century and its masters such as Goya or Daumier is experiencing a renaissance in this century’s newest movement in art: ‘toon art’.
INTRODUCTION
The role of cartoon or comic book imagery in our society is becoming more important every day. This can be best illustrated with an article in the International Edition of Newsweek,(1) which says that the world’s most powerful nation’s future military leaders are now required to study comic books. According to the article one of the requisite readings for West Point cadets graduating from the class of 2006 is “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi, a graphic novel about the Iranian revolution.
A similar development can be seen in today’s entertainment industry, one of modern society’s aspects most influential in shaping our culture and creating future needs and desires in our passive society. An extreme revival of comic book culture, a rapid growth of the graphic novel market, faster and bigger than anybody in a field that was once seen as a degenerate subculture could have ever imagined. Numerous movies based on graphic novel classics such as Spiderman, Hellboy, The Fantastic Four, etc., seem to be Hollywood’s new fad. The comic book industry is experiencing sales like never before. The U.S. market experienced a sales growth of $132 million from 2001 ($75 million) to 2004 ($207 million).(1) Simultaneously European bookstores state that comic books are their fastest growing category.
Art, by its very nature being a reflection of a culture’s developments, does not stay untouched by this development. Whether artist appropriate, create a distorted image of existing imagery, or create their own “characters”, comic book visuals have become an important part of today’s visual language (2). And this development is in no way limited to the United States of America, not even to the Western World, comic book derived fine art is a global trend. As a matter of fact different nations developed their own “toon art” individually, and are now influencing each other strongly. Probably the best example for this is the trend in Asian countries, especially Japan, where manga (comics) and anime (animation) have taken over pop culture. Their famous art exports Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara with their characteristic flat and colorful “cute” visuals have already gained cult status in the rest of the World.
As the boundaries between “high” and “low” art get blurred and forms of expression formerly employed solitarily by subcultures and commercial art forms like fashion design, graphic design, street art, etc. keep appearing on gallery walls, one thing becomes clear: we are rapidly entering a new era in contemporary art. What partially started about forty years ago with artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, who used commercial imagery as a critique on consumerism, has reached a range that will soon make it the predominant art form.
Since this relatively new stream in contemporary art has not yet found its way into art history books, it has not been given a name so far. I will therefore use the expression “toon art” that keeps reappearing in related literature.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SATIRICAL ART
In order to fully understand contemporary satirical artwork one has to see it in its historical context. The cartoon-like satire is nothing new; it dates back to Renaissance times, when artists started using caricature as a form of “counter-art”, rebelling against newly established ideals of beauty.(3) Leaonardo da Vinci explored the ideal type of deformity, the grotesque, which he used for insight regarding ultimate beauty, but which, in the long run, led to develop the discipline of caricature.
While caricature was established in Italy, cartoons came to existence in Germany as a consequence of Martin Luther’s Reformation using visual propaganda. Due to a high illiteracy rate simple posters illustrating shortcomings of the Catholic Church were the most practical means of communication to the masses.(3)
This seems to be the right place to define caricature and cartoon and to explain their differences.
A caricature parodies an individual and what makes him/her individual. At its best it shows a person’s inner self through lighthearted physiognomic satire, exaggerating physical characteristics.
The cartoon deals with groups and their characteristics. Cartoons often reflect how one class looks at another. Through time the cartoon took on more serious subjects and became a valid form of social commentary.
One of the prerequisites for cartoons, or satire in general, is a level of urbanity and cosmopolitanism, as well as a civilized target, that will understand the often subtle criticism raised in the cartoon.
The medium cartoon is tightly linked to the invention of the printmaking press, and though it can be found in other media, printmaking strongly influenced cartoons.
Satirical art experienced an expansion with the English satirical print in the 18th century, especially with its most known employer, William Hogarth. Hogarth’s detailed engravings and etchings of moralizing narratives, always including social or political critique, became extremely popular in England and soon spread all over the continent, exposing other artists to a new medium. The fact that they were prints was most certainly a factor that facilitated this fast expansion at a time where communication across borders generally took a substantial amount of time; prints can be created and distributed in large amounts in relatively little time.
Satire in print ultimately breaks through shortly after Hogarth in Spain with the “godfather of the satirical print”, Francisco de Goya, who had certainly been influenced by the English satirical print. A deep knowledge of the English prints’ vocabulary can be seen when Goya appropriates settings such as the barbershop (one often reoccurring stage for the English satire), uses similar poses and a similar form of caricature. While Hogarth’s work is supposed to teach moral though, Goya did not place himself above the society he criticized.5) In a letter to his friend Martin Zapater, he depicts himself extremely overdrawn, relatively close to his depiction of gluttony.
Goya’s most important series of prints, “Los Caprichos”, depicts negative aspects of society in an exaggerated, partially comical way, creating a semi-humorous social commentary. Aldous Huxley writes about his later works that they depict “a world of bad priests and lustful friars, of fascinating women whose love is a ‘dream of lies and inconstancy,’ of fatuous nobles and, at the top of the social pyramid, a royal family of half-wits, sadists, Messalinas and perjurers.”(4)
In “Disasters of War” he took Napoleon’s invasion of Spain as a new subject, creating depictions of the irrational beast mankind can be in wartimes. This series is certainly less satirical, but depicting similar cruelties on either side of the war can most definitely be seen as a political statement. It can also be seen as one of the first attempts of graphic journalism, a genre that is experiencing a revival now with artists like Art Spiegelman whose Holocaust reportage “Maus” has raised the public image of cartoons considerably. Another artist who cannot be left out in this context Is Joe Sacco, who with works like “Palestine” or “Safe Area Gorazade” has fully stepped into Goya’s footprints.
In the 19th century satirical prints became popular in newspapers, the medium became more mainstream and started losing its ‘high’ art status. Somewhere through mid 19th century early comic strips were invented – Wilhelm Busch created ‘Max und Moritz’, a series of illustrated poems that were executed in a way that every one or two sentences were paired with an image. At the end of the century the comic strip was a well recognized popular art form. As a matter of fact the comic strip experienced a boom with strips like ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’ or ‘Hogans Alley’.
With the 20th century the satirical print had completely lost its artistic status and existed solely in the form of comic books and newspaper editorial cartoons.
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF A NEW ART FORM
There are a number of overall aspects that works of this new genre “toon art” have in common; they could be seen as the defining criteria of “toon art”. Narrative, Humor, Relevance to society and life, Figurative elements, Absurdity, Abstraction, and wel designed Formal appearance;
Narrative
A narrative, defined or open, is a basis for “toon age art”, dictated by its medium derived from commercial art, the cartoon. Creating “toon art” without a narrative is almost as impossible as telling a story without a storyline, though the narrative can be extremely vague and only implied.
Three main ways of creating this narrative prevail:
The closest to the origins of the medium would be the use of frames, showing pictorial elements in a seemingly temporary manner. Changing details while simultaneously not changing other elements, such as the background, suggests a passing of time. In short, you show first things first and later things later.
Speech bubbles are another way to tell a story. This method is sparsely used by the contemporary art world, most probably because over time the “mute” cartoons seemed to be the more artistic ones. Language is still an integral part in this art form. Artists like Raymond Pettibon include words in their art, and eventhough they might not appear in the form of a speech bubble, they still function in a similar way. In fact Pettibon sees the writing part in his work as more important than the drawing aspect. (art 21)
An explanation why many artists are reluctant to use words in heir art could be that words define the narrative more strongly, while pictures function as a more loose form of “language”.
Artists have found a way to “smuggle” speech bubbles into their work by using titles that suggest that they are part of the narrative, or even dialogue.
The third means of creating a narrative is subtler and seems to be used the most. Gestures, looks, pictorial elements that suggest that something just happened, is happening or is about to happen can create a narrative in the viewer’s mind. When Laylah Ali engages her characters in ambiguous activities she uses this extremely open form of narration.
Humor is the second defining aspect of “toon age artwork”. Humor is a way artists show situations or thoughts that are not easily dealt with on a “serious” level, or that people are reluctant to address in a serious context. Humor makes it possible to present things in one way (a way that may be less offensive) and actually show them in another. Adam McEwen, NY artist, asked about why humor can be useful in the arts, answers: “it can destabilize a situation, in a split second, draw the viewer in or allow something else out.”
Subtle metaphors make you smile or laugh and then step back and say: wait a minute… and think.
John Currin says: “When I started making funny paintings, they felt deeper and more about heavy things, like death and sex and love, that I always wanted my paintings to be about. The sillier they looked on the surface, the more they seemed to contain these feelings.”(10)
I think that our world is so desensitized through imagery we see on the media every day that serious images do not make us think any more. We have grown used to accepting social injustice, cruelty, violence, etc. that we do not pay a second thought. Our society has become muted by the entertainment industry. We just look the other way and watch some more MTV, because that is what makes us laugh; to think only makes us more miserable.
Relevance to society and life is an aspect that is closely linked to the figurative aspect of “ton art”. Since most characters in cartoon history, and therefore in the art form that is based on that very history, mimic the general human shape, and with that I mean a really basic human shape made up of head torso and limbs, generally four, it is easier for us to (personally) identify with than with abstract shapes or conceptual ideas. This means that we can see ourselves possibly act out the storyline in a cartoon, even if only to a certain extent, whereas we definitely cannot see ourselves as a certain part of an abstract work, or a conceptual thought. The same happens on the creator’s side, where the artist is using a medium that lends itself best to depicting certain things. The medium of “toon art” lends itself best to creating a narrative speaking about the society its characters are based on.
Generally artists pretend to live outside of society, or at least in a position where they are detached enough to have a clear view of what is going on in that society, a position that allows for seeing through different eyes than the general public, usually more critical eyes, therefore so much “cartoon work”, reflecting our society, reflects certain aspects in a satirical manner.
Absurdity added to “cartoon language” as we know it from commercial artwork is another factor that defines “toon art”. Taking certain elements we are familiar with through the visual history of our society, and planting them in new, disturbing contexts is one means of creating satire in art. Some narratives you would expect in a cartoon setting, some you would not. By deliberately placing characters or narratives in an absurd setting one can startle the viewer and encourage thought.
Absurdity goes hand in hand with abstraction. Abstraction follows the idea of taking minute elements from comic book “language” and blowing them up out of proportion or repeating them to a point where these elements take on a new meaning because they can no longer be defined using their original context.
The last aspect is formal appearance. Using a medium that historically uses very dramatic imagery and composition, one cannot escape the use of similarly dramatic poses, an almost mythical importance of everything.
RELEVANT CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
Since there is an overabundance of “toon artists” and their number seems to be increasing on a daily basis, I have chosen to select a few exemplar artists and have those stand for the entire movement. I chose artists whose work is completely different from each other’s, be it in execution, ideas, style, etc. I want to present an array of “toon art” or art related to the movement, as wide as possible.
Artists I will present are:
- Barry Mc Gee
- Kara Walker
- Michael Ray Charles
- Walton Ford
- Raymond Pettibon
- Laylah Ali
- Yoshimoto Nara
Eventhough these artists’ work might be extremely diverse, and, at a superficial level, might not even be the slightest bit related to each other, they all share one quality. They bring this revival of social satirical art similar to the satirical print in England into being.
I will compare them according to two categories: subject matter and formal qualities. Subject matter because that will show whether the work can actually be compared to historical social satirical prints and whether it falls into the same tradition, formal qualities in order to point out how a similar concept changes over time, how contemporary politics and societal issues define the genre of satire.
Barry Mc Gee’s mural work has an extremely open subject matter; according to him his work depicts an “overload of the senses that one might feel walking down the street of any of our fine American cities”. Apart from this overload his work creates a feeling of social injustice and class awareness.
Concerning formal qualities, Barry Mc Gee uses a medium that is tightly interlinked with cartoon art – graffiti art. Working in galleries and on the street at the same time he blurs the line between “high” and “low” art, opening his work to a vast audience, talking to two classes, a “high” and a “low” audience.
Raymond Pettibon, an artist using a completely different formal approach, deals with a similar subject matter. Contemporary politics, political history, societal critique that is hard to put into a category, because it is so diverse, and the occasional one liner are his most prominent subjects.
Pettibon falls into this group of “toon artists” because he uses quick drawings combined with words; he might actually be one of the formally closest to cartoon work, always adding an extra twist in the accompanying text, which makes him follow the tradition of the satirical print.
Walton Ford is the one in the group presented who fits in not only through the use of similar issues, but also because he actually does some print work. Topics that appear in his work are related to contemporary politics, especially U.S. politics, historical politics that apply to present-day issues and social issues.
The artist creates extremely elaborate watercolors that mimic natural historical illustration, but always includes at least one disturbing element. Beautiful metaphors that superficially tell fables set in colonial times apply to present political situations like George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Ford makes you look, laugh and then think. He follows the historical tradition more formally than conceptually, I think his concepts are more elaborate and more intellectual than the average English satirical print.
Laylah Ali is an artist who emphasizes the “toon” in “toon art”. Her gouache paintings of genderless, raceless characters that are engaged in ambiguous situations reflect political and social issues. In a sense she created a visual language to speak about present day problems of our society.
Ali clearly falls into the group of cartoon inspired artists. She even developed her own set of characters to act out our issues in a new context. The “Greenheads” act out disturbing sceneries that are full of emotion and tension in a colorful pastel-world.
Formally her work is really plain, some of it follows the frame layout, there are a lot of dramatic gestures, looks, etc.; in short, she closely follows a cartoon history. Compared to satire in historical prints, her work follows that tradition by showing reality put into extreme situations, always remaining a sort of neutral witness.
Michael Ray Charles is another artist who indirectly deals with comic book imagery. He uses pictures derived from commercials, especially stereotypes that were created by early advertising. The role of the African American in today’s society is displayed through creating semi-absurd images.
Formally Michael Ray Charles takes imagery that is well known by the viewer – so did Goya when he used the barbershop scene derived from the English print - and uses it for his own purpose.
Kara Walker also deals with the picture of the African American in our society. She refers to a time passed, just like Michael Ray Charles, only she goes back even one step further. Colonial imagery put into absurd situations, that at a second glance might not be that absurd any more.
She uses another medium that is closely related to cartoons, the silhouette. Ina way you could see it as the colonial fashionable cartoon.
Yoshitomo Nara, the only one on the list who is from a different culture, one of today’s most influential Japanese artists, uses a similar visual language to all the other artists presented. His subject matter are the emotional experiences of early childhood and how they are translated into adulthood. Sometimes world politics appears to be like a group of little boys fighting in a sandbox.
Formally Nara is the closest to the cartoon medium. His rough sketch-like drawings remind of children’s book illustrations, and children’s drawings. He also works in three dimensional media, always using the same aesthetics though, mimicking collectable figurines and other commercial comic book merchandise items.
MY WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF ‘TOON ART’
Since all of ‘toon art’ seems to be defined by a handful of characteristics (narrative, humor, relevance to society and life, absurdity, abstraction, formal appearance), and I do consider myself part of this movement, I will apply all these to my work.
I use narrative in a relatively open form, I suggest stories of implied violence, be it physical or emotional. On the one hand I do not show frames or any sort of time measurement, images can be put into any order, leaving any plot entirely open to the viewer. On the other hand I do have defined characters though, the oppressed, the oppressor, and the neutral or passive. Thus, there is a certain level of definition, a defined set of characters, a vague idea of a story, and there is always the option to relate the images to contemporary politics and finish the plot by applying reality to fiction.
Humor in my work is superficial and is supposed to attract attention, so that heavier issues can be addressed more lightheartedly. I see the ‘funny looking characters’ with big glasses and odd posture as caricature, a depiction of what our society least wants to be – physically weak, old, obviously displaying signs of imperfection, uniform, etc.
This leads directly to the next criterion, relevance to society and life. I try to show unreal characters that are more real than we see ourselves as. We perceive our reality as some sort of colorful young MTV video; really we are nothing but dull imperfect routine loving passive players in an overly controlled society.
Absurdity and abstraction are addressed by the fact that all characters are extremely undefined and indefinitely repeated. There are no signs of individualism, everything seems artificial, no space and time frames exist, all in all my work depicts an absurd, abstract world.
Concerning formal appearance, I tend to have a minimal approach to depicting anything. I exclude things that are of no importance to the narrative; my pages remain untouched to a high degree. The less I draw or print on a page the more do I have to pay attention to composition, ending up with simple looking highly planned layouts.
CONCLUSION
All issues addressed by any of the artists mentioned above are very similar. They reflect contemporary politics, societal downfalls and shortcomings, racial and discriminative issues, all closely related to what printmakers were doing in the 18th and 19th century. Racial discrimination might not have been an issue, but other forms of social oppression based on class, status in society, heritage, etc. are almost the same topics. As much as is seems that societal issues reappear over history, the art world does react similarly to comparable issues.
Since the English print of the 18th century, Goya’s and Daumier’s work, etc. are both, formally and according to subject matter, so close to contemporary ‘toon art’, one can see this new stream in contemporary art as a renaissance of this old form of ‘cartoon art’. The way work is executed, the way concept is included in the work, and the way work is presented might be different, but essentially work addresses similar issues, criticizes to the same degree, uses the same vocabulary of the same visual language.
The print might not be the medium of the time, as it was in the 18th century, now we have other means of bringing a message across to a vast number of people. Social satire in its ‘older’ form is tightly linked to printmaking, because of the medium’s ability to be mass produced and spread easily, nowadays we can express ourselves in any medium and our work can be reproduced in a digital form with almost no restriction.
REFERENCES
(1) Foroohar, Rana. Comic Relief. Newsweek International. Aug 22. 2005
(2) Bloemink, Barbara and Clark, Vicky A. Comic Release: Negotiating Identity for a New Generation. 2003
(3) A Brief History of Political Cartoons. Mar. 23. 2006
(4) Spaightwood Galleries. Mar.14. 2006.
(5) Wolf, Reva. Goya and the satirical Print. Boston. 1991
(6) Godfrey, Richard. James Gillray-The Art of Caricature. London. 2001
(7) The Image of America in Caricature & Cartoon; Dallas, 1975
(8) Shesgreen, Sean. Engravings by Hogarth. New York. 1973
(9) “Caricature and Cartoon.” Encyclopaedia Britanica. 2006. Encyclopaedia Britannica Premium Service. 16 Mar. 2006
(10) Art in the Toon Age and The Story of Toons. 14 Mar. 2006
(11) Takashi Murakami. Journal of Contemporary Art, Inc. 2001
(12) Higgins, Ned. Cartoon Reality.
(13) Strickland, Carol. Artists ‘toon in. The Christian Science Monitor, Jun. 20. 2003
(14) Cassel, Valerie. Splat, boom, pow! : the influence of cartoons in contemporary art. Houston. 2003.
(15) Little boy : the arts of Japan's exploding subculture / edited by Takashi Murakami. New York : Japan Society, 2005.
(16) Art:21.Mar.23. 2006
(17) “satire.” Britannica Student Encyclopeadia. 2006. Encyclopaedia Britannica Premium Service. 16 Mar. 2006
(18) D’Arcy, David. Art Spiegelman on Comics and Film. Green Cine. Nov. 18. 2005
(19) Yablonsky, Linda. What’s So Funny About Contemporary Art?. Artnews. 2004
(20) Smith, Roberta. Art Review; Retreat From the Wild Shores of Abstraction. The New York Times. Oct. 18. 2002
(21) The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. May 2. 2006
A thesis submitted to the College of Webster University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of
M.A
May, 2006
St. Louis, Missouri
©Copyright by
Alexander Petrowsky
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
(2006)
The author hereby grants to Webster University permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part for educational purposes.
posted by Alex Petrowsky at 6:18 PM
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