The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Bird's Eye View of Europe in 1830.

_From the collection of the New York Public Library._]

CHAPTER XIII

RETROSPECTIVE

[Ill.u.s.tration: Daumier.

Daumier fut le peintre ordinaire Des pairs, des deputes et des Robert-Macaire.

Son rude crayon fait l'histoire de nos jours.

--o l'etonnante boule! o la bonne figure!

--Je le crois pardieu bien, car Daumier est toujours Excellent en caricature.]

The close of the first half of the nineteenth century marks a convenient moment for a backward glance. These fifty years, which began with the consuls.h.i.+p of the first Napoleon and closed on the eve of the third Napoleon's _coup d'etat_, witnessed the rise and fall of more than one Napoleonic spirit in the realm of comic art. It was essentially a period of individualism, of the one-man power in caricature. Existing conditions forbade a logical and unbroken development of the political cartoon; it evolved only by fits and starts. It was often less an expression of the popular mood than a vehicle for personal enthusiasm or personal rancor; at the hands of just a few masters, it verged upon the despotic. At intervals, first in one country and then in another, a Gillray, a Rowlandson, a Daumier, would blaze forth, brilliant, erratic, meteor-like, leaving behind them a trail of scintillating suggestion, destined to fire some new fuse, to start caricature along some new curve of eccentricity.

The importance of these fifty years, the lasting influence of these forerunners of the modern cartoonists, must not be underrated. Without the inspiration of their brilliant successes, and, it may also be added, the useful lessons of their errors and failures, the cartoon of to-day would be radically different, and probably greatly inferior to what it is. Above all, they taught, by two tremendous object lessons, the potent force that lies in pictorial satire--by the share which English cartoonists had in the overthrow of Napoleon I., and which French cartoonists had in the downfall of Louis Philippe. But it was only with the advent of the modern comic weekly of the high type represented by _Punch_ that it became possible to develop schools of caricature with definite aims and established traditions--schools that have tended steadily to eliminate and reject the old-time elements of vulgarity and exaggeration, to gain the increased influence that comes from sobriety of method and higher artistic excellence, and to hold erratic individuality in check. Few people who are not directly concerned in its making ever realize how essentially the modern caricature is a composite production. Take, for example, the big, double-page cartoon which has become such a familiar weekly feature in _Puck_ or _Judge_, with its complicated group of figures, its suggestive background, its mult.i.tude of clever minor points; the germ idea has been picked out from perhaps a dozen others, as the result of careful deliberation, and from this starting point the whole design has been built up, detail by detail, representing the joint cleverness of the entire editorial staff. But the collaboration reaches further back than this. A political cartoon resembles in a way a composite photograph, which embodies not merely the superimposed features of the men who sat before the camera, but something also of the countless generations before them, who have made their features what they are by transmitting from father to son something of their own personality. In the same way, the political cartoon of to-day is the product of a gradual evolution, mirroring back the familiar features of many a cartoon of the past. It is not merely an embodiment of the ideas of the satirists who suggested it and the artist who drew it, but also of many a traditional and stereotyped symbol, bequeathed from generation to generation by artists dead and gone. The very essence of pictorial satire, its alpha and omega, so to speak, is symbolism, the use of certain established types, conventional personifications of Peace and War, Death and Famine and Disease, Father Time with his scythe, the Old Year and the New; the Russian Bear, the British Lion, and the American Eagle; Uncle Sam and Columbia, Britannia and John Bull. These figures, as we have them to-day, cannot point to any one creator. They are not an inspiration of the moment, a stroke of genius, like Daumier's "Macaire" or Travies's "Mayeux." They are the product of a century of evolution, a gradual survival of the fittest, resulting from the unconscious natural selection of popular approval. No better specific instance can be taken than that of the familiar figure of John Bull as he appears from week to week in the contemporary pages of _Punch_, for his descent may be traced in an unbroken line--there are no missing links. No single British caricaturist, from Gillray to Du Maurier, can claim the credit for having invented him; yet each in his turn has contributed something, a touch here, a line there, toward making him what he is to-day. As Mr. Spielmann has pointed out, the earliest prototype of _Punch's_ John Bull is to be sought in Gillray's conception of "Farmer George," that figured in a long series of malevolent caricatures depicting George III., as a gaping country lout, a heavy, dull-witted yokel. There is no more curious paradox in the history of caricature than that this figure of "Farmer George,"

conceived in pure malice as a means of inspiring resentment against a king popularly believed to care more for his farmyard than for the interests of his subjects, should by gradual transition have come to be accepted as the symbolic figure of the nation. Yet the successive steps are easy enough to understand. When Gillray's point of attack had s.h.i.+fted from the throne of England to the throne of France, his type of "Farmer George" needed but slight modification to become a huge, ungainly ogre, the incarnation of British wrath against "Little Boney"--shaking a formidable fist at the coast of Calais, wading knee-deep across the channel, or greedily opening a cavernous jaw to take in a soul-satisfying meal of French frigates. But beneath the exaggerated ferocity of Gillray's extreme type, the idea of a farmer as the national figure is never quite lost sight of. In Gillray's later cartoons the conception of John Bull had already taken on a more consistent and definite form. At the hands of Rowlandson and Woodward he lost much of his uncouthness and began to a.s.sume a mellower and more benignant aspect; a cartoon by the latter, ent.i.tled "Genial Rays," pictures him reclining luxuriously upon a bed of roses, basking in "the sun of patriotism," the image of agricultural contentment. A certain coa.r.s.eness and vulgarity, however, clung to him until well down into the forties, when the refining touch of Leech and Tenniel gradually idealized him into the portly, choleric, well-to-do rural gentleman who is to-day such a familiar figure the world over. This type of John Bull as the representative Briton once called forth some thoroughly characteristic comments from John Ruskin. "Is it not surely," he asks, "some overruling power in the nature of things, quite other than the desire of his readers, which compels Mr. Punch, when the squire, the colonel, and the admiral are to be at once expressed, together with all that they legislate or fight for, in the symbolic figure of the nation, to present the incarnate Mr. Bull always as a farmer--never as a manufacturer or shopkeeper?" Such a view on the part of Mr. Ruskin is consistent with his life-long insistence upon literal truth in art. But he was obviously mistaken when he questioned that John Bull is the deliberate choice of the British public. The average Englishman, whether soldier or sailor, statesman, merchant, or manufacturer, approves and enjoys the pleasant fiction that the representative type is a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned country gentleman, conservative and rather insular, a supporter of landed interests, a patron of country sports; in short, one who lives his life close to his native soil, who seems to personify the rolling down, the close-clipped hedge, the trim gardenplot, the neat thatched roof, things which typify England the world over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Evolution of John Bull.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Henri Monnier in the Role of Joseph Prudhomme.

"Never shall my daughter become the wife of a scribbler."

_By Daumier_]

Not only are most of the accepted symbolic figures--John Bull, Uncle Sam, and the rest--what they are because they meet with popular approval, but no cartoonist to-day could venture upon any radical departure from the established type--a bearded John Bull, a smooth-shaven Uncle Sam--without calling down public disfavor upon his head. If one stops to think of it, our own accepted national type, the tall, lank, awkward figure, the thin, angular Yankee face with a shrewd and kindly twinkle in the eye, is even less representative of the average American than John Bull is of the average Briton. It is interesting to recall that before the Civil War our national type frequently took the form of a Southerner--regularly in the pages of _Punch_. To-day, in England and in America, there is but one type of Uncle Sam, and we would not tolerate a change. It may be that in the gaunt, loose-knit frame, the strong and rugged features we recognize a kins.h.i.+p to that sterling and essentially American type of man which found its best exponent in Lincoln, and that this is the reason why Uncle Sam has become the most universally accepted and the best beloved of all our conventional types.

CHAPTER XIV

'48 AND THE COUP D'eTAT

It was only natural that caricature, like every other form of free expression of opinion, should feel the consequences of the general political upheaval of 1848; and these consequences differed widely in the different countries of Europe, according to the degree of civic liberty which that revolutionary movement had effected. In Germany, for example, it resulted in the establishment of a whole group of comic weeklies, with a license for touching upon political topics quite unprecedented in that land of imperialism and censors.h.i.+p. In France, on the contrary, political caricature came to an abrupt close just at a time when it had begun to give promise of exceptional interest. Louis Napoleon, who owed his elevation to the presidency of the republic chiefly to the popular belief in his absolute harmlessness, developed a most unexpected and disconcerting strength of character. His capacity for cunning and unscrupulousness was yet to be learned; but a feeling of distrust was already in the air, and the caricaturists were quick to reflect it. Louis Napoleon, however, was keenly alive to the deadly harm wrought to his predecessor by Philipon's pictorial sharp-shooters, and he did not propose to let history repeat itself by holding him up to public ridicule, after the fas.h.i.+on of the poor old "Poire," the citizen king. Accordingly the _coup d'etat_ was hardly an accomplished fact when press laws were pa.s.sed of such a stringent nature that the public press, and pictorial satire along with it, was reduced to a state of va.s.salage, dependent upon the imperial caprice, a condition that lasted upward of fifteen years. Consequently, the few cartoons satirizing Napoleon III., that emanate from French sources, either belong to the closing years of his reign or else antedate the law of 1851, which denied trial by jury to all cases of infringement of the press laws. The latter cartoons, however, are of special interest, for they serve to throw important light upon the popular state of mind just prior to the famous _coup d'etat_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The only Lamps authorized to light the Path of the Government."

_By Vernier in "Charivari."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Italian Cartoon of '48.]

The majority of these cartoons appeared in the pages of _Charivari_, and some of the best are due to the caustic pencil of Charles Vernier.

A good specimen of this artist's work is a lithograph ent.i.tled "The Only Lamps Authorized for the Present to Light up the Path of the Government," showing Louis Napoleon marching along sedately, his hands clasped behind his back and his way illuminated by three lantern-bearers. The lanterns are, respectively, _La Patrie du Soir_, _Le Moniteur du Soir_ and _La Gazette de France_, newspapers then in favor with the government. Just in front of Louis Napoleon, however, may be seen a dark and ominous manhole. Another of Vernier's cartoons is called "The Shooting Match in the Champs elysees." The target is the head of the Const.i.tution surmounting a pole. Napoleon is directing the efforts of the contestants. "The man who knocks the target over completely," he is saying, "I will make my Prime Minister." The contrast between the great Napoleon and the man whom Victor Hugo liked so to call "Napoleon the Little" suggested another pictorial effort of Vernier. A veteran of the Grand Army is watching the coach of the state pa.s.sing by, Napoleon holding the reins. "What! That my Emperor!"

exclaims the veteran, shading his eyes. "Those rascally Englishmen, how they have changed my vision!" The methods by which Louis Napoleon obtained his election first as President for ten years, and secondly as Emperor of the French, were satirized in _Charivari_ by Daumier in a cartoon called "Les Aveugles" (The Blind). In the center of this cartoon is a huge ballot jar marked "Universal Suffrage." Around this the sightless voters are laboriously groping.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Napoleon Le Pet.i.t.

_By Vernier._]

Many were the designs by which Daumier in _Charivari_ satirized Louis Napoleon's flirtation with the French republic. In one of them the Prince, bearing a remote resemblance in manner and in dress to Robert Macaire, is offering the lady his arm. "_Belle dame_," he is saying, "will you accept my escort?" To which she replies coldly: "Monsieur, your pa.s.sion is entirely too sudden. I can place no great faith in it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The New Siamese Twins.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis Napoleon and Madame France.]

Pictorial expressions of opinion regarding the "great crime" of 1851, which once more replaced a republic with an empire, must be sought for outside of France. But there was one subject at this time upon which even the strictest of edicts could not enforce silence, and that was the subject of Napoleon's marriage to Eugenie. The Emperor's Spanish bride was never popular, not even during the first years of the Second Empire, before she began to meddle with affairs of state; and in many incisive ways the Parisians heaped ridicule upon her. A curious little pamphlet, with text and ill.u.s.trations, about the new Empress was sold in Paris at the time of the marriage. This pamphlet was entirely complimentary and harmless. The biting humor of it was on the t.i.tle-page, which the vendors went about crying in the streets: "The portrait and virtues of the Empress, all for two sous!" But for a frank expression of what the world thought of the new master of the destinies of France, it is necessary to turn to the contemporary pages of _Punch_. The "London Charivari" was at this time just entering upon its most glorious epoch of political caricature. John Leech, one of the two great English cartoonists of the past half century, had arrived at the maturity of his talent; the second, John Tenniel, was destined soon to join the staff of _Punch_ in place of Richard Doyle, who resigned in protest against the editorial policy of attacking the Roman Catholic Church. Both of these artists possessed a technical skill and a degree of artistic inspiration that raised them far above the level of the mere caricaturist. And as it happened, the world was entering upon a long succession of stormy scenes, destined to furnish them with matter worthy of their pencils. After forty years of peace, Europe was about to incur an epidemic of war. The clash between Turkey and Russia in 1853 was destined to a.s.sume international proportions in the Crimean War; England's troubles were to be augmented by the revolt of her Indian mercenaries; the Russian war was to be closely followed by another between France and Austria; by the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic; the bitter struggle between Prussia and Austria; and the breaking up of the Confederation of the Rhine, with the Franco-Prussian War looming up in the near future. It was on the threshold of such troublous times, and as if prophetic of the end of European tranquillity, that Leech signalized the accession of Napoleon III. as Emperor with the significant cartoon, "France is Tranquil!!!" Poor France cannot well be otherwise than tranquil, for Mr. Leech depicts her bound hand and foot, a chain-shot fastened to her feet and a sentry standing guard over her with a bayonet. The artist soon followed this up with another cartoon, evidently suggested by the initial plate of Hogarth's famous series of "The Rake's Progress." The Prince President, in the character of the Rake, has just come into his inheritance, and has cast aside his former mistress, Liberte, to whom he is offering money, her mother (France) standing by, an indignant witness to the scene. His military tailor is measuring him for a new imperial uniform, while behind him a priest (in allusion to the financial aid which the Papal party was receiving from Napoleon) is helping himself from a plate of money standing beside the President. On the floor is a confused litter of swords, knapsacks, bayonets, crowns, crosses of the Legion of Honor, the Code Napoleon, and other miscellaneous reminders of Louis' well-known craze on the subject of his uncle and his uncle's ideas. Mr. Tenniel's early cartoons of Louis Napoleon are scarcely more kindly. The Emperor's approaching marriage is. .h.i.t off in one ent.i.tled "The Eagle in Love,"

in which Eugenie, represented with the most unflattering likeness, is employed in paring the imperial eagle's talons. In 1853 Tenniel depicts an "International Poultry Show," where we see among the entries a variety of eagles--the Prussian eagle, the American eagle, the two-headed Russian and Austrian eagles--and among them a wretched mongrel, more closely akin to a bedraggled barn-door fowl than to the "French Eagle" which it claims to be. Queen Victoria, who is visiting the show, under escort of Mr. Punch, remarks: "We have nothing of that sort, Mr. Punch; but should there be a _lion_ show, we can send a specimen!!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis Napoleon's Proclamation.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Split Crow in the Crimea.

_From Punch._]

CHAPTER XV

THE STRUGGLE IN THE CRIMEA

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bursting of the Russian Bubble.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "General Fevrier" turned Traitor.]

The grim struggle of the Crimean War for a time checked Mr. Punch's attacks upon Napoleon III., and turned his attention in another direction. Although the war cloud in the East was a.s.suming portentous dimensions, there were many in England, the Peace Society, the members of the peace-at-any-price party, with Messrs. Bright and Cobden at their head, and most conspicuous of all the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, who deliberately blinded themselves to the possibility of war. It was for the enlightenment of these gentlemen that Mr. Leech designed his cartoon "No Danger," representing a donkey, eloquent in his stolid stupidity, tranquilly braying in front of a loaded cannon.

In still another cartoon Lord Aberdeen himself is placidly smoking "The Pipe of Peace" over a br.i.m.m.i.n.g barrel of gunpowder. John Bull, however, has already become wide-awake to the danger, for he is nailing the Russian eagle to his barn door, remarking to his French neighbor that _he_ won't worry the Turkies any more. At this time England had begun to watch with growing jealousy the cordial _entente_ between Russia and Austria, for the Emperor Nicholas was strongly suspected of having offered to Austria a slice of his prospective prize, Turkey. This rumor forms the basis of an effective cartoon by Leech, "The Old 'Un and the Young 'Un," in which the Russian and Austrian Emperors are seated at table, genially dividing a bottle of port between them. "Now then, Austria," says Nicholas, "just help me finish the Port(e)." Meanwhile, hostilities between Turkey and Russia had begun, and the latter had already received a serious setback at Oltenitza, an event commemorated by Tenniel in his cartoon of "A Bear with a Sore Head." In spite of his blind optimism, Lord Aberdeen was by this time finding it decidedly difficult to handle the reins of foreign affairs. One of the best satires of the year is by Tenniel, ent.i.tled "The Unpopular Act of the Courier of St. Petersburg,"

depicting Aberdeen performing the dangerous feat of driving a team of vicious horses. The mettlesome leaders, Russia and Turkey, have already taken the bit between their teeth, while Austria, catching the contagion of their viciousness, is plunging dangerously. This cartoon was soon followed by another still more notable, ent.i.tled "What It Has Come To," one of those splendid animal pictures in which John Tenniel especially excelled. It shows us the Russian bear, scampering off in the distance, while in the foreground Lord Aberdeen is clinging desperately to the British lion, which has started in mad pursuit, with his mane erect and his tail stiffened like a ramrod; the lion plunges along, dragging behind him the terrified premier, who is gasping out that he can no longer hold him and is forced to "let him go." At the same time Mr. Leech also represented pictorially Lord Aberdeen awakening to the necessity of war in his "Bombardment of Odessa." The cartoon is in two parts, representing respectively the English Premier and the Russian Emperor reading their morning paper.

"Bombardment of Odessa," says Aberdeen. "Dear me, this will be very disagreeable to my imperial friend." "Bombardment of Odessa," says Nicholas; "confound it! This will be very annoying to dear old Aberdeen!" In the following November the British victory of Inkerman, won against almost hopeless odds, was witnessed by two members of the Russian imperial family. Leech promptly commemorated this fact in his picture of "The Russian Bear's Licked Cubs, Nicholas and Michael." The cartoon ent.i.tled the "Bursting of the Russian Bubble" appeared in _Punch_, October 14, 1854, just after the battle of the Alma had taken place and part of the Russian fleet had been destroyed by the English and French s.h.i.+ps at Sebastopol. This cartoon is by the hand of Leech.

The Russian Emperor, Nicholas I., had boasted of the "irresistible power" which was to enable him to overthrow the allied forces gathered in the Crimea, and here the artist shows very graphically the shattering of this "irresistible power" and of the "unlimited means."

Of all the cartoons which Leech produced there is none which enjoys a more enduring fame than the one ent.i.tled "General Fevrier Turned Traitor." Certainly no other in the whole series of Crimean War cartoons appearing in _Punch_ compares with it in power. Yet splendid and effective as it is, there is in it a cruelty worthy of Grandville or Gillray, and when it appeared it caused a shudder to run through all England. The Russian Emperor had boasted in a speech on the subject of the Crimean War that, whatever forces France and England might be able to send to the front, Russia possessed two generals on whom she could always rely, General Janvier and General Fevrier. In other words, Nicholas I. cynically alluded to the hards.h.i.+p of the Russian winter, on which he counted to reduce greatly by death the armies of the Allies in the Crimea. But toward the end of the winter, the Emperor himself died of pulmonary apoplexy, after an attack of influenza. In a flash, Leech seized upon the idea. _General Fevrier had turned traitor._ Under this t.i.tle, the cartoon was published by _Punch_ in its issue of March 10, 1855. General Fevrier (Death in the uniform of a Russian general) is placing his deadly hand on the breast of Nicholas, and the icy cold of the Russian winter--the ally in whom the Emperor had placed his trust--has recoiled upon himself. The tragic dignity and grim significance of this cartoon made a deep impression upon Ruskin, who regarded it as representing in the art of caricature what Hood's "Song of the s.h.i.+rt" represents in poetry. "The reception of the last-named woodcut," he says, "was in several respects a curious test of modern feeling ... There are some points to be regretted in the execution of the design, but the thought was a grand one; the memory of the word spoken and of its answer could hardly in any more impressive way have been recorded for the people; and I believe that to all persons accustomed to the earnest forms of art it contained a profound and touching lesson. The notable thing was, however, that it offended persons _not_ in earnest, and was loudly cried out against by the polite journalism of Society. This fate is, I believe, the almost inevitable one of thoroughly genuine work in these days, whether poetry or painting; but what added to the singularity in this case was that coa.r.s.e heartlessness was even more offended than polite heartlessness."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Henri Rochefort and his Lantern.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Brothers in Arms. The French and English Troops in Crimea.]

As was but natural, the Anglo-French alliance against Russia is alluded to in more than one of Mr. Punch's Crimean War cartoons. One of the earliest is a drawing by Tenniel of England and France typified by two fine specimens of Guards of both nations standing back to back in friendly rivalry of height, and Mr. Spielmann records in his "History of Punch" that the cut proved so popular that under its t.i.tle of "The United Service:" it was reproduced broadcast on many articles of current use and even served as a decoration for the backs of playing cards. Still another cartoon, ent.i.tled "The Split Crow in the Crimea," represents England and France as two huntsmen, hard on the track of a wounded and fleeing two-headed bird! "He's. .h.i.t hard!--follow him up!" exclaimed the huntsmen. In a French reproduction of this cartoon, which is to be found in Armand Dayot's "Le Second Empire," "Crow" is amusingly translated as _couronne_ (crown), and the publishers of _Punch_ are given as "MM. Breadburg, Agnew, et Cie." Another cartoon of the same period is called "Brothers in Arms." It shows a British soldier carrying on his back a wounded French soldier, and a French soldier carrying on his back a wounded Englishman. The two wounded men are clasping hands. There is no better evidence of the utter dearth of French caricature at this period than the fact that M. Dayot, whose indefatigable research has brought together a highly interesting collection of pictorial doc.u.ments of all cla.s.ses upon this period of French history, could find nothing in the way of a cartoon in his own country and was forced to borrow from _Punch_ the few that he reproduces.

On the other side the Russian cartoonists were by no means backward in recording the events of the war and holding up the efforts of the Allies to pictorial derision. The Russian point of view has come down to us in a series of excellent prints published in St. Petersburg during the months of the conflict. In this warfare the Russians may be said to have borrowed from their enemies, for this series is essentially French in method and execution. All through this series England and France are shown buffeted about from pillar to post by the Conquering Bear. A description of one of these cartoons will give a fair general idea of the entire series. Sir Charles Napier, at a dinner given in his honor in London just before the departure of the Allied fleet for Kronstadt, has made the foolish boast that he would soon invite his hosts to dine with him in St. Petersburg. Of course the fleet never reached St. Petersburg, and the Russian artist satirically summed up the situation by depicting Sir Charles at the top of the mast, endeavoring by the aid of a large spy-gla.s.s to catch a sight of the Czar's capital.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Turkey, John Bull & Monsieur Frog-Eater in a Bad Fix.