Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History

Observations on a Theory of Political Caricature

Author(s): W. A. Coupe
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 79-95
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Observationson a Theoryof Political
Caricature
W. A. COUPE
Universityof Reading

In callingfor a generaltheoryof politicalcaricatureStreicher'points to

an obviousneed;whetherhis call is likelyto be answeredin the nearfuture
is a differentmatter.We still do not possesssufficientempiricalstudieson
whichsucha theorymightbe based:evenin the age of the mass-produced
Ph.D., the academic study of caricatureand political cartooninghas
sufferedfrom considerableneglect,partly no doubt becauseit lies in a
peculiarno-man's-landwhereseveraldisciplinesmeet, and so tendsto be
scornedby the purists.We have virtuallyno informationabout African,
Orientalor Latin-Americancaricature.Even in the case of countriesso
obviously importantfor the developmentof the political cartoon as
Germany,France, and the United States we do not possess adequate
individualstudies,and it is only in the last decadethat Englandhas, in
the writingsof M. D. George,2beengiventhe attentionwhichthe remark-
able richnessof her traditionof caricaturedeserves-and then only for
the periodup to 1832.
Perhapseven more importantthan the absenceof detailed,nationally
basedstudiesis the peculiarlyself-willed,proteannatureof whatmaterialis
available and the sheer magnitude of the theoretician'stask. In his
'Directionsfor Research'Streicherreminds us that a theoreticalunder-
standingof political caricatureinvolves an understandingof caricature
itself,the caricaturist,his publishersandaudience,andthe historicalepoch
and social structurewithin which the caricaturistoperates.One may, I
think,be forgivenfor doubtingwhetherit will everbe possibleto fit such
a vast collection of topics, each embracinga numberof variablesand
presentingus with a mass of contradictions,into a meaningfultheoretical
frameworkwhich will effectivelytranscendthe simple statementthat
'Somefolks do, somefolks don't'.
Clearlysuch theories as are propoundedmust always be put to the
empiricaltest; Streicher,however,in his articledoes not referto individual
1 L. H. Streicher, 'On a Theory of Political Caricature', ComparativeStudies in Society and
History, IX, 4 (1967), 427-45.
2 M. D. George, English Political Caricature,2 vols., Oxford, 1959.

79

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8o W. A. COUPE

cartoonsand only mentionsa coupleof cartoonistsin passing.This is not

quite so surprisingas might seem at first sight: the contrarinessof the
materialcan reducethe aspiringtheoreticianto desperation.All too often
one's carefullythought-outtheories are thrown into question, if not
actuallydisproved,by work in kindredfields. Thus my own view1that
politicalcaricatureis dependent,in the periodbeforethe rise of the news-
papercartoon,on a traditionof social satireis entirelyvalidfor Germany
and England-so much so that the writingsof Mrs. Georgereally need
to be readin conjunctionwith G. Paston'sSocial Caricaturein the Eight-
eenthCentury(London,1905).Yet it wouldnot applyto the UnitedStates,
whichin the nineteenthcenturyhada flourishingtraditionof politicalsatire,
but ignored social topics.2 Similarly,the suggestion,if I understand
Streicher'singenioustable(p. 441)aright,thatthe frequencyof the political
cartoonis proportionateto the 'conflictfulness'of a given epoch is borne
out by eventsin Englandand Germany,but only at certaintimes in the
historicaldevelopmentof these two countries.The last centuryhas com-
plicatedthe issue by throwingup graphicjournalistswho, conflictor no
conflict, are contractuallycommittedto producinga given numberof
cartoonsper annum,but leavingaside this particularproblem,it would
be a bold man who wouldarguethat the Germanyof Frederickthe Great
and Maria Theresawas less 'conflictful'than the period of the Thirty
Years' War, yet the formerproducedno political caricature,while the
latterproduceda greatdeal. Similarly,the Englandof Fox and Pitt is to
my mind no more 'conflictful'than the Englandof the Anti-CornLaw
League,the Chartistmovementor of Gladstoneand Disraeli,yet fromthe
early 1830sonwardswe see not only a strikingreductionin the outputof
caricaturesbut an equallyremarkablechangein their nature.The savage
pictoriallibelsof Gillrayandhis imitatorsarereplacedby the socialsatires
of John Leech and the dignifiedpoliticalallegoriesof Sir John Tenniel.
Arguablythis was a resultof the shift in publictaste duringthe Victorian
era, but beforewe jump to the conclusionthat a combinationof broad
taste and conflictare the ingredientswhich producea vital traditionof
caricatureand that the latterreflectsthe prevailingmood and mores,we
must recallthe exampleof Germany,whereit was the conformist,ultra-
Victorianand, internallyat least, relatively'non-conflictful'Wilhelmine
epoch which quickenedthe ratherinnocuoushumourof Kladderadatsch
and FliegendeBldtterwith the aggressivesatire of the Simplicissimusof
AlbertLangenand T. T. Heine.Equally,whilethe newspapersof England
andthe UnitedStatesin 'conflictful'and 'non-conflictful'
timesalikeregale
I W. A. Coupe, 'The German Cartoon and the Revolution of 1848', ComparativeStudies
in Society and History, IX, 2 (1967), 159. Cf. also the examination of the derivation of the
imagery of the political cartoon in seventeenth-centuryGermany in W. A. Coupe, The German
IllustratedBroadsheetin the SeventeenthCentury,2 vols. (Baden-Baden, 1966/67), I, Ch. 7.
2
A. Nevins and F. Weitenkamp, A Centuryof Political Cartoons(New York, 1944), p. 16.

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 8i
their readers with political cartoons, the press of certain other equally
democratic countries (e.g. Italy) seems to make a point of avoiding car-
toons, except, of course, for the internationally syndicalized comic strips
which recount the adventures of Blondie and Juliet Jones.
Theoretical statements on the 'language of caricature' and the relation-
ship of caption to drawing run into similar difficulties. Streicher suggests
(p. 438) that 'the words of caricaturists,either below their prints or coming
out of the mouths of their subjects in balloons, helped to give their subjects
life and a natural reality'. In many cases this is undoubtedly true; often
indeed the cartoon becomes completely meaningless without the caption.
Thus F. Mussil's drawingof a thoroughly innocuous PresidentLubke sitting
at his desk while Adolf Hitler sits before him' of itself conveys no
message. It is the addition of the words: 'I'm sorry, I really have never
seen you before-so far as I can remember' Which turns the entirely
neutral situation into a devastating piece of political satire. Elsewhere,
however-not least in the work of some of the most celebrated cartoonists
-Streicher's thesis scarcely stands up to the empirical test and the balloons
are often no more than an uncomfortable survival from the detailed verses
which in earlier times had always been appended to satirical prints. Thus
to my mind the subtitle which Gillray gives to his famous The Plumb-
pudding in danger, not to mention the highly involved conversation with
which he cumbers all the parts of many another cartoon,2 actually detracts
from the impact of the engraving: it spoils the 'joke' by explaining it. Even
in more modern times, it is not difficult to find examples where the text is
at best tautologous: a really successful cartoon can usually speak for itself
without the help of the letterpress, which is, in any case, often not the
work of the cartoonist himself.3 If Tenniel had omitted the title from
P1. 3,4 the meaning of the cartoon would still have been abundantly
clear-clearer in fact, since we should have been spared the somewhat
inapplicable allegory which has since tended to trouble those readers who
incline to take captions literally. In much the same way, even without the
title and the knowledge that 'blow over' was a phrase used by Mayor A.
Oakey Hall, Thomas Nast's representation of Hall, Sweeney, Connolly
and Tweed as grotesque vultures perched high on a storm-battered ledge
1 P1. 1. The reference is to the repeated allegations that Liubkewas knowingly involved in
the building of concentration camps, an allegation supported by documents and drawings
apparently signed by him. The President in a recent television broadcast sought to invalidate
the 'evidence' by asserting his innocence and remarking that in any case he could not be
expected to remember every scrap of paper he had signed over twenty years ago.
2 P1. 2. Cf. Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray, The Caricaturist(London, 1965), P1. 90, 92, 103, etc.
3 The Punch 'Table' presents a permanent example of a 'collective cartoonist' at work, as
did the Wednesday sessions of the staff of Simplicissimus(See R. G. G. Price, A History of
Punch (London, 1957), p. 32 and E. Roth, Simplicissimus(Hanover, 1954), no pagination,
sections 'Geselligkeit' and 'Aus der Schule geplaudert'). The caption of the Zec cartoon
mentioned in note 1 on p. 83 was the work of the columnist Cassandra. Similarly, 'Trog'
(P1. 6) is the signature of a two-man team (George Melly and Wally Fawkes).
4 Punch, 29.3.1890. Rep. Price, op. cit., p. 73.

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82 W. A. COUPE

among humanbones and about to be swept away by a landslide'could

not fail to conveyhis meaningto the reader.
The cartooniststhemselvesare almost as cussedas the work they pro-
duce, and I am equallyuncertainwhetherone will ever be able to draw
more than very generalconclusionsabout them. Notwithstandingsome
of the laterworkof SirJohnTenniel,the cartoonof approbationnaturally
tendsto a ratherhumourlessinsipidityor at best to a falsepathos,and by
and large cartoonists-who for the most part are graphicsatirists-tend
to avoidit for reasonsof temperamentor professionalconvenience.Within
this limitation,however,their motives are as complicatedand variedas
othermen's.If ThomasNast (1840-1902)and Sir David Low (1891-1963)
can be cited as men of strong principleswhose cartoonswere weapons
with whichthey soughtto fightthe good fight,othercartoonistsof no less
repute-notably GeorgeCruikshank2-werereadyto put theirservicesat
the commandof the highestbidder,and evenGillrayis not abovesuspicion
in this respect,3so that his caricaturesmay often be more an expression
of venalitythanof angeror hate.If Gillraywas,however,keenlyinterested
in politics,Tennielcertainlywas not.4 In rarecases(e.g. Nast in Harper's
Weekly)cartoonistshave played an importantrole in decidingeditorial
policy, occasionallythey have enjoyed a sort of 'fool's freedom'-one
thinks of Low with his anti-Establishment outlook on the conservative
Beaverbrook'sEveningStandard.More commonly,however,they have
probablygravitatedto newspaperswhich roughlycorrespondedto their
own outlook and there more or less toed the editorialline, or like the
unfortunateWill Dyson of the Daily Herald,5 paid dearly for their
freedom:feweditorscan affordto lose favouror circulationin the interests
of a cartoonist'sfreedomof expression.
Like all journalists,the cartoonistis concernedwith the creationand
manipulationof public opinion, but his actual impact, although often
undoubtedlygreat,has not infrequentlybeenexaggerated.Clearly,such a
shrewdand eminentlysuccessfulpropagandistas Martin Lutherwould
not have spent valuable time thinkingup and executingideas for his
anti-Papalcartoons,had he not been convincedof theirefficacy.In more
moderntimes,we have AbrahamLincoln'swordfor it that ThomasNast
was 'his best recruitingsergeant'in the CivilWar,6and the 'TweedRing',
the corruptNew York administrationwhich Nast attackedwith such
ferocityand successin 1871,was apparentlypreparedto buy the cartoon-
ist's silence at the price of half a million dollars.7 Similarly,the wry
1 P1. 4.
2 D. Low, British Cartoonists, Caricaturistsand Comic Artists (London, 1942), p. 15.
3 George, op. cit., I, p. 196; Draper Hill, op. cit., pp. 67, 73 ff.
I Price, op. cit., pp. 72 ff; Low, op. cit., p. 20. 5 Low, op. cit., p. 44.
6 Nevins and Weitenkamp, op. cit., p. 9.
7 R. Butterfield, The AmericanPast (New York, 1947), p. 206.

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 83
humour of Bruce Bairnsfather's'Old Bill' cartoons was an invaluable
morale booster for the men in the trenches,even if Sir David Low's
tributethat 'the FirstWorldWarcould not have been won withouthim'
is probablya slightexaggeration!But theseare individualswallowswhich
in no way make a summer.We can neverreallyknow exactlywhat the
impactof a givencartoonwas on a givenreaderor groupof readers.Even
amongst one's closest friendsone occasionallyfinds a surprisingvariety
of reactionsto apparentlyunambiguousandinoffensivemoderncartoons;1
how much more complicatedthe situationbecomeswhen we are dealing
with readersculturallyor historicallyremote from us! One generation's
meat is anothergeneration'spoison, and it may well be that Gillray's
clients, for instance, actuallyenjoyed readingthe over-burdenedplates
mentionedin note 2 on page81; certainlywe cannot now enterthe mind
of the typicalprint-buyerof 1808-assuming such a creatureeverexisted.
Our own reactionscan be highlymisleadingand thatwhichappearsto us
to be utterlyinsignificantwas perhaps,in its own brief hour, pregnant
with meaning. Conversely,the appealof many a cartoon we tend to
regardas particularlysignificanthas only been acquiredas the resultof
subsequenteventsand is reallyextrinsicto it: Tenniel'sDroppingthePilot
has only such strong appeal because of what we know about the con-
sequencesof the personalityand policiesof Bismarck's'captain',and if
WilliamII had died in 1895,the cartoonwould never have achievedits
presentfame. Similarly,the frighteninglypropheticcartoon Will Dyson
drew in the Daily Heraldat the time of the VersaillesPeace Conference
which contrastedthe wranglingpoliticianswith a baby labelled'Class of
1940'above the caption'I seemto heara childweeping',or Low'scartoon
in the EveningStandardof 15.5.1933whichshowedHitlerand Mussolini
and otherEuropeanpoliticiansheldin the handof God abovethe caption
'Littlemen, little men, must you be taughtanother lesson?'have for us
a meaningthey cannotpossiblyhave had for their contemporaries,and
if Hitlerhad died of pneumoniain 1935,they would probablyhave had
little meaningfor us either.
Suchhistoricalaccidentsapart,it is probablytrue,in spiteof Streicher's
unease(p. 428) at Alba's 'unclear'distinctionbetweendegreesof cultural
refinement,that the lower the level of educationand sophistication,the
greaterthe impact of a pictureis likely to be. As the infamousTweed,
1 The most celebrated example of conflicting interpretations is provided by Zec's cartoon
'The Price of Petrol has been Increasedby One Penny-Official' (Daily Mirror, 5.3.43), which
reflected on the war-time losses amongst merchant shipping and the recent increase in the
price of petrol by showing a sailor clinging to a raft. Although intended to exhort the public
not to waste oil by pointing out its real price, the cartoon was interpreted by the Churchill
Government as an attempt to hamper the war-effort by suggesting to sailors that they were
risking their lives for the enrichment of the oil companies. The paper was threatened with
closure and only saved by a Parliamentaryfurore. See further H. Cudlipp, Publish and Be
Damned (London, 1953), pp. 175 ff.

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84 W. A. COUPE

needled by Nast's cartoons in spite of his normal indifferenceto publicity,

complained: even if his supporters could not read, they could all 'look at
damn pictures'.' Within our life-time the impact of pictures, even on
primitive minds, has been radically modified by the rise of the illustrated
tabloid press and the advent of television, but we have no means of
measuring the extent of this process. For the period before the absorption
of the satirical print by the newspaper, historians have a rough guide as to
the importance of any particular piece of graphic satire in the number of
adaptations and editions it went through, although even here it may well
be that the preaching was mostly directed to the converted rather than to
the uncommitted and the opponent and, like much modern advertising,
aimed at retaining old loyalties rather than gaining new ones.2 In our
press-oriented age, however, we do not even know how many readers
actually look at the cartoons which are included in the 'package-deal' they
conclude with the publisher and news-vendor, and in an epoch of mass
literacy it would be perverse to maintain that the resident cartoonist is
likely to exert a greater influence than the leader-writersand commentators
in plain prose.3
The confusing and intractable nature of political caricature as a subject
is perhaps best demonstrated by the uncertainty amongst professional
students of the phenomenon as to what caricature really is and how it
works. At least I find myself unable to agree with a number of views
commonly expressed in this connection, and the purpose of the following
remarks is to contribute to the debate inaugurated by Streicher by sub-
jecting these views to closer scrutiny.
Ever since John Leech in 1843 described as 'cartoons' the parodies he
drew of the cartoons (in the true meaning of the term as a preparatory
design for a large drawing or painting) for the frescoes of the Houses of
Parliament, popular usage has not differentiated between 'cartoon' and
'caricature', but has applied both indiscriminately (as I have done in this
paper up to now) to almost any drawing which refers to the social or
political situation. Historically, the term 'caricature', in the sense of a

1 Butterfield, loc. cit. Boss Tweed was, of course, in his own crude way only expressing a
general truth which, centuries before, had been given a more dignified formulation by Pope
Gregory the Great in a letter to Bishop Serenus of Massilia, who had opposed the ecclesiastical
use of pictures: 'Quod legentibus scriptura, hoc idiotis praestat pictura cernentibus, ut hi qui
letteras nesciunt, saltem in parietibus videndo legant, quae legere in codicibus non valent'.
2 Cf. the way in which during World War I Le Rire Rouge reproduced German cartoons
from Simplicissimus,FliegendeBldtter, etc. which showed the French in an unfavourable light
as evidence of the malice and misguided stupidity of the Germans. In much the same way, as
late as 1918, the German censors helped the learned Dr. Ferdinand Avenarius to 'turn the
trick' on Allied cartoonists by allowing him to publish in his Das Bild als Narr (Munich, 1918)
some 300 anti-German and anti-Imperial cartoons which are often of positively hair-raising
ferocity.
3 Thus in spite of Boss Tweed's unsolicited testimonial to the power of Nast's pictures, the
'Ring' offered the New York Times five million dollars in return for its silence compared to
the half a million offered to Nast (Butterfield, loc. cit.).

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 85
'portrait' in which characteristicfeatures of the sitter were exaggerated to
the point of distortion, is considerably older, the first usage recorded by
the New English Dictionary occurring in a letter of Walpole dated 1748.
It does not follow from this, however, as Streicher seems to suggest (p.
431), that the cartoon in the sense of a drawing intended for publication
and commenting on political, social, or religious conditions arose subse-
quent to the establishment of caricature as a minor art form in the seven-
teenth century. The printed picture as a didactic or polemical vehicle is
almost as old as printing itself, and the English fathers of what we know
as political caricature, from Townshend to Gillray, simply fused two
distinct historical traditions, pouring, as it were, the new wine of Italian
portrait caricature into the old bottle of the emblematic or symbolical
print. The latter had had currency in Western Europe since the German
Reformation and had recently been re-invigorated in England as a result
of the Anglo-Dutch alliance, the Dutch in the late seventeenth century
having cultivated the tradition in the course of their quarrels with France.
In quickening the symbolical print with portrait caricature the eight-
eenth-century political 'cartoonists' were really only applying to graphic
art a technique which at least since classical times had been a standard
device of the literary satirist. Streicher's equation (p. 431) of caricature in
pictorial art with satire in literature is unhappy. Graphic art can be
satirical without resorting to caricature,just as satirical writers frequently
have recourse to caricature in order to achieve their effects: Titian's parody
of the Laocoon group as monkeys, Luther's anti-Papal fly-sheets and
Hogarth's treatments of 'modern moral subjects' are all satirical, but free
from any suspicion of caricature. Equally, Plautus' Miles gloriosus,
Dickens's Mr. Justice Fang and Evelyn Waugh's aristocrats are every bit
as much caricatureas Gillray's Hero's recruitingat Kelsey's, Rowlandson's
or Daumier's judges or Osbert Lancaster's upper-class types. In all the
cases quoted, characteristicfeatures are seized upon and exaggeratedto the
point of distortion, yet it is precisely by means of this distortion that a
striking impression of fidelity is conveyed. Whereas caricaturein literature
has almost invariably served a satirical purpose, this was not initially the
case in graphic art, however. It is a commonplace that all good portraits
contain a trace of caricature, and Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), the
Bolognese painter who is usually held to be the originator of portrait cari-
cature, saw in the latter a technique which would enable the artist 'to grasp
the perfect deformity and reveal the very essence of a personality. The
caricature, like every other work of art, is more true to life than reality
itself'.' This new art form, which aimed at truth by transcending reality
and thus constituted a non plus ultra after the realistic portraits of the
Renaissance, was practised by Carracci's successors largely as a private
1 Quoted by E. H. Gombrich and E. Kris, Caricature(London, 1940), p. 12.

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86 W. A. COUPE

artistic amusement in which doubtless there was scope for malice, but in
which the latter was certainly not the dominant element. Indeed,
subsequently it became fashionable for enterprising caricaturists to be
commissioned as 'portrait-ists',and it is via the young dandies who during
their grand tour in Italy paid the English artist, Thomas Patch, to caricature
them that the technique was imported into England,' where, as we have
seen, it was misapplied in order to enliven the satirical political print with
negative insights into the personal characteristics of political opponents.
In view of the original purpose of caricature,it is perhaps a little remark-
able-if historically understandable-that so many writers on the subject
are at pains to emphasize its negative and aggressive aspects. Not all
authorities go quite so far as the contributor to the Athenaeumof October
1831, who described the caricaturistas 'a man who closes his heart against
the sensibilities of human nature ... who insults inferiority of mind and
exposes defects of body ... who aggravates what is already hideous and
blackens what before was sufficientlydark',2 but a surprising number do,
to a greater or lesser degree, tend to plough with the same calf. Victor
Alba,3 for instance, tells us that the cartoonist's aim is to 'provoke in the
spectator a sentiment hostile to the thing ridiculed', while in Streicher's
view (p. 431) 'caricature is definitely negative. It laughs the actor out of
court . . .' and is a vehicle for 'ridicule and denigration'. Similarly, Ernst
Kris4 sees aggression as the hall-mark of all caricature, the latter being
an instrument for the 'annihilation tendencies' of the artist, a means of
'threatening, superseding and dismissing' the individuality of the victim.
Kris is so convinced of the aggressive nature of caricaturethat he accounts
for its historically late development in terms of its affinities with black
magic: as in the case of homoeopathic magic, image and object become
virtually interchangeable,the one substituting for the other, and only when
mankind had evolved sufficientlyto differentiateclearly between them was
caricature possible (cf. Streicher's assertion [p. 434] that 'caricature was
not involved in ritual and possessed no cult value'). I have elsewhere
suggested that, while Kris's assertion of the association of object and image
is incontrovertible, it does not of itself explain why caricature should be
'discovered' precisely at the beginning of the seventeenth century: if the
Church, for at least two hundred years before then, did not scruple to hang
offenders in effigy, the faithful are barely likely to have reacted with
primeval superstitious dread to the exaggeration of the shape of a man's
nose! It seems to me far more meaningful to see caricature, as suggested
I G. Paston, Social Caricaturein the Eighteenth Century(London, 1905), p. 59.
2 Quoted by Draper Hill, op. cit., p. 6.
3 'The Mexican Revolution and the Cartoon', ComparativeStudies in Society and History,
IX, 2 (1967), 121.
4 E. Kris, 'The Psychology of Caricature',Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art (New York,
1952), pp. 175, 179, 200.

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 87
above, simplyas the paradoxicalculminationof the realisticportraiture
of the Renaissancewhich, because of the amusementproducedby the
distortion,was debasedfromthe highpurposeenvisagedby its originators.
The view of Born, quotedby Streicher(p. 435), that distortionproduces
ridiculouseffects only if it is not a legitimatefeatureof the art of the
period scarcelysquareswith the known facts: deviationsfrom natural
formswereprevalentin medievaltimes,yet manifestlymanya distortion-
be it on a misericord,a gargoyle or in the marginalillustrationof a
psalter-was designedand executedsolely to amuse. Equally,in an age
of realism,HieronymusBosch's art derivesmuch of its point from the
artist'spredilectionfor distortion,a distortionwhich certainlywas not
felt to be a sourceof innocentmerriment.Oneis temptedin thisconnection
to advancea generalthesis that throughoutthe whole period of human
history where deviationsfrom the naturaland familiarhave not been
foundto be horrific,theyhavealwaysbeenfoundto be comic,the reaction
dependinginitially on the degree of deviation and the manner of its
treatment.As anyonewho has everseen a horrorfilmwill testify,the gap
betweenthe horrificand the comic is everybit as narrowas that between
the sublimeand the ridiculous.For the moment,however,I should like
to let that pass and ask whethermost caricaturesreally do have such
negativequalitiesas are commonlyattributedto them by the authorities
quoted.
Alba suggeststhat the cartoonis a vehiclefor hostility,while Streicher,
to my mind more correctly,sees it as being 'value-neutral'(p. 431). In
assertingthat it admits of both 'build-up'and 'debunking'techniques,
however,Streicheromitsto mentiona third,equallyimportantapproach.
As E. H. Gombrichpointedout in his illuminatingstudy of the weapons
in 'The Cartoonist'sArmoury'lmanycartoonsare neitherhumorousnor
propagandisticand they satisfyus simplybecausethey reducea complex
situationto a formulawhich sums it up neatly. Tenniel'sDropping the
Pilot-surely the mostfamousof all cartoons-is not a blow for or against
eitherBismarckor WilliamII; it neitherdebunksthemnorbuildsthemup;
it simplyoffersa polite allegoryon a given politicalsituation.Tennielis
perhapsa badexamplein thathe wasnot a manof strongconvictions-his
Punch commissionswereusually'descriptivejobs'-nor was he by nature
a caricaturist,and he exhibiteda surprisingindifferenceto the featuresof
the politicianshe drew,but Gombrichdoes quote otherexampleswhich
use caricature,and I do not think we should allow his point to pass
unnoticedin our discussion.
The classic theory of caricature,building on the words of Carracci
quotedabove,says that the caricaturistseizeson the essenceof his victim
1 E. H. Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Horse (London, 1963), pp. 131 ff. Flora of
Die Zeit specializes in such 'summings up'.

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88 W. A. COUPE

andprovides,as it were,a negativecounterpartto the idealizingtendencies

of the normalportraitist.He destroyshisvictim'spersona(persona = mask,
the 'personality'of a man being, so to speak,the player'smaskhe wears
in the dramaof life) by penetratingto the realitybehindthe appearance
presentedto the world and revealing,in Kris's phrase, 'the true man
behindthe mask of pretenceand showingup his essentiallittlenessand
ugliness'.'Undoubtedly,suchpurelynegativeand, in the Freudiansense,
degradingcaricatureswere common enough in the earlierstages of the
developmentof politicalcaricature:manyof the bestcaricaturesof Gillray
are little short of graphiclibels and the traditionlives on in the work of
Gerald Scarfe (Sunday Times)2 or Trog (Daily Mail and Observer) in
Englandor in that of Conrad(Los AngelesTimes)in the United States,
yet the modern cartoonistswho use caricatureas an act of outright
aggressionare in a distinctminority.As one of the graphicjournalist's
most strikingand effectivedevices,caricaturehas come to be an indispen-
sable ingredientin the moderncartoon,but almostany empiricaltest will
show that most artiststend simplyto drawan amusingdistortedlikeness,
ratherthan to interpretthe characterof theirvictimsnegatively.Whatwe
call 'caricature'in this contextis no morea vehiclefor aggressionthanthe
comicfacesof the protagonistsin the 'cartoons'put out for the amusement
of children(and often theirparents!):the 'caricatured' featuresof Hector
Heathcote,the Flintstones,Dagwood,and Ferd'nandare felt to be amus-
ing deviationsfrom the normal and serve the same functionin the film
or comic as the noses of de Gaulleand Johnsonor the facial hair of Ho
Chi Minh do in manyan adultcartoon.It is worthnotingin this connec-
tion that 'serious'comic strips,like 'JulietJones' or 'Buck Ryan' avoid
caricature.The emotivevalue of a politicalcartoon,however,is not to be
determinedsimplyby the fact of caricature,but by the mannerandcontext
in whichthat distortionappears.Two contrastingexampleswill standfor
many.WhenRobinsonof theIndianapolis NewsrepresentsBobbyKennedy
as an urchinwith characteristicforelock and prominentteeth siphoning
petrolfrom a car labelled'McCarthyfor President',the broadimpishgrin
and the generalair of ratherendearingimpudencethat speak from his
caricatureof Kennedy'sfeaturespersuadeus, as it were, to enter the
conspiracyand ignore the basic dishonestyand opportunisminherent
in the situation as it is presentedto us.3 But when Trog4 represents
Kennedywith the sameexaggeratedforelockand rabbitteethin a deliber-
ately ugly fashion, places him before a T.V. set wherewe see a smiling
Johnsonshakinghandswith Ho Chi Minh, and puts the questionin his
mouth: 'What the hell do I promise now-escalation ?', his cartoon
becomespositivelyvenomousin its aggressiveintention.
I E. Kris, op. cit., p. 190. 2 G. Scarfe, Gerald Scarfe's People, London, 1964.
3 Pl 5. 4 P1.6.

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 ,,Tutmr leid - i(h hob' Sie wirklichnochnie gesehen- soweitich micherinnernkann!"

P1. 1. Felix Mussil, Frankfurter Rundschau,March 2nd, 1968.

P1. 2. James Gillray, print published by H. Humphrey, February

26th, 1805.

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 OC)
, I ;,i I
,7l lo7, l!l 2 E

It I~~~~~~~~~~~~~I

O 00

~on

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 In BroadDaylight
,,,;v - rwsX.C.s;^ ,, .i<

R~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I

P1. 5. Robbie Robinson, The Indianapolis News,

March 21st, 1968.

...
.....
.. .......
......

What the hell do I promise now-escaiatinol

P1.6. Trog, TheObserver,April 7th, 1968.

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ta poule aux eeufs d'or ou la tereur du p,ulaUler ?
(t lornal do Brazil a)

P1. 7. Jornal do Brazil, reprinted

Rivarol, March 28th, 1968.

P1. 8. Express (Cologne), re-

Kiesinger: . I1 ne fond pas Je l'aurals pourtant
printed Rivarol, March 21st, 1968. blen cru de glace. (^ Express * d. Cologntc)

* * * ARRIVA). OF T4LSCER-oAN MrYt

A~~~~
P1. 9. Sir David Low, Evening Standard, July 15th, 1936 (By kind
permission of the Trustees of Sir David Low).

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 89
As well as constituting a vehicle for aggression, caricature can equally
well convey a grudging admiration-affection even. Again, two examples'
will illustrate the point. In the first, de Gaulle appears as a grotesque hen
with bulbous beak pecking away at dollars and laying golden eggs; in
the second, he is an enormous snow man armed with a broom and wearing
a ludicrous tin hat, while a tiny Kiesinger holds a candle against him and
says 'He doesn't melt. I thought he was made of ice!'. In both cases, the
cartoonists dress their 'victim' in an absurd disguise and wilfully distort
his features, but the intention is not to undermine his dignity and authority
by making him ridiculous: we laugh with the 'victim' at the expense of
his E.E.C. partner, and the defenders of the dollar, who have so radically
misjudged the French President's political and economic policies and his
capacity to implement them. De Gaulle himself emerges from the cartoons
with enhanced stature.
I have already referred to Streicher's equation of satire and caricature,
and should like at this juncture to return to it. Once we see caricature as
but one element-albeit in modern times a very important element-in
the equipment of the graphic satirist, we shall be nearer an assessment of
its true significance. It is now close on two hundred years since the German
poet-philosopher Friedrich Schiller distinguished between two broad types
of literary satire;2 his analysis is, I believe, of continuing validity and is as
applicable to the graphic arts as it is to literature. Schiller suggests that
the basis of all satire lies in the awareness and revelation of a conflict
between the real and the ideal: the deficiencies inherent in the actualities
of existence are measured against the yard-stick of a postulated, but not
necessarily formulated, ideal possibility and found wanting. This conflict
of ideal and real may, however, be seen and expressed in two different
ways, in an emotional and serious or in a humorous and jesting fashion.
The former Schiller calls 'punitive' satire, the latter 'laughing' or 'playful'
satire. If now we apply this theory to the two Kennedy cartoons mentioned
above, we see how behind both there is an implied ideal possibility: that
of a Presidential candidate of high moral principles who would not be a
cynical, scheming opportunist nor seek blatantly to steal another man's
thunder (or petrol). Both contrast this ideal with the reality represented,
Trog in a serious and punitive, Robinson in a playful and laughing
manner.
In theory the aim of both punitive and laughing satire is identical: as a
result of the conflict and contrast, the reality represented becomes an
object of distaste in the mind of the spectator and both types point to
defects in individual human beings or in society as a whole and invite the
I PI. 7 and 8.
2 F. Schiller, iber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, Werke, XII, i (= Deut. Nat.
Literatur, vol. 129, Stuttgart and Berlin, n.d.), p. 370.

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90 W. A. COUPE

victim and the spectator to draw the appropriate conclusions. In practice

such a happy outcome is, of course, rarely achieved. Leaving aside the
actual intentions of the cartoonists in the case quoted, neither cartoon was
likely to persuade the late Senator Kennedy to change his character or his
campaign tactics; only Trog's cartoon was capable of having a negative
effect on the Senator's public image, while Robinson's laughing satire
very probably did do him more good than harm. The different
practical results achieved by punitive and laughing satire should, I think,
be central to any discussion of caricature and the cartoon. The attribution
of the old device castigat ridendo mores to the comic satirist is in fact
highly questionable. As often as not we subconsciously label laughing
satire as being 'for amusement only' and then sit back and enjoy it.
Laughter is a peculiarly inappropriate weapon with which to fight genuine
abuses and vices: notoriously Moliere and his audiences can laugh at the
foibles of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,but it takes a singularly odd sense of
humour to laugh at Tartufjeor Le Misanthrope,nor, in spite of the tendency
to class Swift as a humorous writer, will many readers be moved to
genuine mirth by Gulliver's Travels (especially A Voyage to the Houyhn-
hnms). Conversely, where satirists from Rabelais to Evelyn Waugh have
sought to harness laughter to their satirical purposes they have run the
risk of doing no more than amuse us and so of failing in the fundamental
moral aim the theoreticians are wont to ascribe to them. The cartoonist is
exposed to exactly the same danger. Further, partly because of a shift in
public taste in modern times and the need to avoid antagonizing a sensitive
readership, the pressures on him to use laughter are stronger than in the
case of the literary satirist. Most readers expect a cartoon to make them
laugh or at least smile; the very word has come to mean a funny picture
or series of pictures, and exceptions like Conrad or Scarfe notwithstanding,
the modern political cartoonist has largely been reduced to the level of a
court jester, given perhaps the freedom to tell the 'truth', but only on
condition that he make us laugh in the process. Far from tearing the
deceitful mask from public figures and holding up a warning finger to the
reader, the tendency is to represent serious political problems in humorous
allegorical guise and to invite us to laugh at our political predicaments,
thereby in a way robbing them of their reality, or at least cocooning us
from the horror in a web of gallows' humour.
In this connection one can, I think, drawa meaningfuldistinction between
cartoons which reflect on internal domestic policies and those which treat
the international situation. In the first case, the cartoonist's function is
often, literally, to enable us to 'grin and bear it': the cartoonist breaks the
tension of serious political debate by interposing a joke and so to a certain
extent enables the debate to proceed in a relaxed and civilized fashion. On
the international front, however, the cartoonist's contribution is by no

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 91

means always so helpful. Clearly, in the context of laughing satire, we are

not so much concerned with 'hate cartoons' such as World War I, for
instance, brought forth in such abundance in the shape of allegorical ogres
and atrocity jokes, even though we are still living with the legacy of the
hatred these cartoons helped to generate-one thinks of the pictures of
babies on bayonets or Uhlans' lances and the representations of Prussian
officers executing children and collecting severed hands as souvenirs. Our
concern is rather, if we may stay with World War I for a moment, with
the representation of the typical German soldier as the square-headed,
close-cropped, corpulent and bespectacled 'Fritz', whose stupidity is
matched only by his cowardice, or, in more general terms, with the
common tendency of cartoonists during the last two centuries, in times of
peace as in times of war, to represent enemies and opponents as puny,
insignificantcreatureswho are to be laughed at ratherthan hated or feared.
The psychologists tell us that laughter often serves as a defence mechan-
ism, its function being to release tension and neutralize fear.' Children,
for instance, commonly insist that that which had originally frightened
them is 'funny' and thereby strip it of its menacing properties. In much the
same way, many epochs have sought to overcome primeval fears by dress-
ing them in comic garb: the clumsy satyrs of Greek comedy, the Devil
tripping over his tail in medieval miracle plays, or the perennial jokes on
sexual subjects are well-known examples of the tendency. To my mind a
similar process may be observed at work in much graphic satire. Like the
child, the cartoonist represents that which is a source of real anxiety as
being comic: 'Look', he says, 'the Germans are just fools and cowards', or,
coming near our own time, 'Khrushchev and Mao Tse Tung are really
only country bumpkins'. The conclusion advanced may indeed be testi-
mony to the reality of the cartoonist's underlying anxieties, but, as pre-
sented to the public, it is not calculated to denigrate the victim and make
him odious in our eyes. It may be aggressive in the sense that it reveals the
'littleness' and even the 'ugliness' of the victim, but the unmasking is, in
a manner of speaking, positive in that it demonstrates that our fears are
really groundless and invites us to share not so much in the cartoonist's
hostility as in his self-inducedfalse sense of security. Fortunately, especially
in an age of mass communications and general literacy, cartoonists prob-
ably do not have the effect on public opinion that professional students of
caricature sometimes impute to them-certainly the men in the trenches
had a somewhat differentview of 'Fritz' than many a home-based cartoon-
ist!-but even so, the operation of laughter as a defence mechanism can
make the cartoonist a highly questionable ally. Draper Hill2 has drawn
I E. Kris, 'Ego Development and the Comic', Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art (New
York, 1952), pp. 212 ff.
2 op. cit., p. 126.

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92 W. A. COUPE

our attention to the fact that Napoleon's physical stature in Gillray's

cartoons shrank in proportion as the threat he constituted to Britain grew
and, although we cannot now be absolutely sure, it is difficult to believe
that the English public can have seen in Gillray's preposterously arrogant
and much-vexed 'little Boney' a real threat to its life and liberty. Similarly,
coming nearerto our own day, Sir David Low's hatred of fascism is beyond
doubt, yet the 'Hit and Muss' cartoons of the thirties, in which he so often
showed Hitler as a ludicrous, posturing and vain little fellow attended by
a distinctly slow-witted, bruiser-like Mussolini, certainly did not strike
alarm and despondency into his readers. Quite the contrary! In spite of
his unimpeachable intentions, by showing the fascist dictators as political
equivalents of the many humorous couples of popular mythology (Mutt
and Jeff, Pat and Mick, etc.), he probably contributed to the conviction
that it 'couldn't happen here'. Such absurd little men surely could not
constitute a serious political threat!1 In much the same way, on the home
front, Low's Colonel Blimp, the personification of the die-hard conserva-
tive brass-hat, a fool and a dangerous one at that, often acted as a sort of
lightning conductor: we laughed at him and as a result his sins somehow
tended to be forgiven him, so much so that in the end he became an almost
endearing old fellow who in 1943 could emerge as the hero of a popular
propaganda film in which he personified all that was best in Britain!
Even where a cartoon inclines to punitive satire a certain sympathetic
process is, I believe, often at work. The constant repetition of a given
politician's features establishes him as a person in our minds and the
familiarity inevitably breeds that measure of sympathetic contempt which
speaks, for instance, from many of the Punchcartoons of BernardPartridge
and L. Raven Hill in which William II emerged as a rather melancholy
and uncomprehending and at times almost tragic figure.2 D. H. Lawrence's
dictum that 'satire is sympathy' is clearly no more than a half-truth,
although it has recently been corroborated by that acute observer of the
British political scene, the late Randolph Churchill, who was moved to
remarkthat Vicky, the New Statesmancartoonist, really loved his victims-
Supermac, The Butler and the rest.3 It is, however, certain that, far from
'P1. 9. See also L. H. Streicher, 'David Low and the Sociology of Caricature', Comparative
Studies in Society and History, VIII, 1 (1965), 1-23. For further examples of Low's work
see D. Low, A Cartoon History of Our Times, New York, 1939 and Years of Wrath, A
Cartoon History 1932-1945, London, 1949.
2 Cf. Raven Hill's 'The Limit' (28.10.14), 'The Innocent' (9.12.14); Partridge's 'Uncon-
querable' (21.10.14), 'A Chronic Complaint' (2.12.14). These cartoons represent only one
side of Mr. Punch's anti-Kaiser campaign, of course, but it is the minor cartoons which
convey the most savage aggression, e.g. Fairhead's representationof the Emperor as Bill Sikes
(4.11.14) and L. Patten's portrayal of him as a gargoyle (28.10.14). For a further example of
the love-hate relationship between cartoonists and their victim cf. the treatment of Adenauer
by Simplicissimusand Adenauer's reaction, Simplicissimus6.5.67, p. 147.
3 See Osbert Lancaster'sforeword to Home and Abroad- Vicky Cartoonsfrom the Evening
Standard,London, n.d. (1964). Cf. also Lord Butler's foreword to Vicky must Go-a Selection
of Vicky Cartoonsfrom the Evening Standard,London, n.d. (1960).

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 93
feeling their personalities to have been annihilated by the cartoonists'
unmasking of their foibles, many politicians feel flattered by the attention
given to them and not infrequently ask their 'persecutors' for the original
drawings: Joseph Chamberlain had a large collection of F. C. Gould's
caricatures of himself and reputedly was as proud of them as he was of
his collection of orchids.' In much the same way, of course, if the cartoon-
ists' occasional introduction of themselves into their caricatures (e.g. Low
and Vicky) cannot be seen exactly as evidence of narcissistic self-love, it
certainly cannot-in spite of the unfortunate suicide of Vicky-be seen
as evidence of self-hate and annihilation tendencies either.
The sympathetic process associated with so much laughing satire is
necessarily dependent on the representation of actual persons-or at least
of figures who by constant repetition acquire a fixed personality and emo-
tive content (e.g. Blimp, or even Daumier's Robert Macaire2) whom the
reader can recognize and who in the process of time become old friends.
Johnson, Wilson, Kiesinger and de Gaulle are real and appealing in a way
that the standard, but emotively unstable conventional representatives of
their respective countries-Uncle Sam, John Bull, Michael and Marianne
-can never be. It is interesting to note in this connection how the contri-
butors to the Soviet satirical weekly Krokodilrarely represent the features
of known European and American politicians. There is no lack of cartoons
which show Western policies in a highly unfavourable light, but in the
overwhelming majority of cases the initiators of these policies do not
appear in person, but are replaced by 'mythologized' types who bear no
physical resemblance to Johnson, Wilson or Kiesinger, and are designed
simply to convey disapprobation: a top-hatted capitalist sells manacles
and fetters to South Africa or treats with Ian Smith; a bloated figure
complete with horn-rimmed spectacles and Iron Cross presents Emergency
Legislation to the Bundestag;an ugly and obviously corrupt Congressman
feeds dollars into the gaping muzzle of a cannon dressed in American
uniform, etc.3
It may well be that the Russian avoidance of even a negative 'cult of the
personality' is an entirely fortuitous element in the Krokodileditorial policy
rather than the result of an awareness that satire can under certain circum-
stances back-fire and generate sympathy rather than hostility. However
that may be, there is evidence that the earliest political cartoonists in
Europe were very much aware of the double-edged nature of the weapons
1 D. Low, British Cartoonists,p. 43. The classic precedent for this is provided by the legend
recorded by Pliny (Nat. Hist. XXXV, 140). Stratonice, the Queen of Nearer Asia, was
'cartooned' by Ctesicles in a painting which showed her 'romping' with her fisherman-
paramour. Ctesicles was forced to flee for his life, but Stratonice preservedthe painting-not,
one suspects, simply out of regard for art, as Pliny suggests.
2 See W. Wartmann, Honore Daumier (London, 1946), pl. 30-42.
3 Krokodil, 27/1967; p. 3; 6/1968, p. 10; 25/1967, p. 12; 6/1968, p. 11. I am grateful to Mr.
James Dingley for help with the captions of these cartoons.

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94 W. A. COUPE

they wielded and reserved personalized satire generally, and laughing

satire exclusively, for the treatment of disarmed and defeated opponents.
In the Thirty Years' War,' for instance, the only two historical figures to
be treated in graphic satire to any extent were FrederickV of the Palatinate,
perhaps better known as the 'Winter King', and Graf von Tilly, the
veteran commander of the forces of the Catholic League. Although over
ten years separate the defeat of the Calvinist pretender to the Bohemian
crown at White Mountain (1620) and the defeat of Tilly at the hands of
Gustavus Adolphus at Breitenfeld (1631), the pattern of their treatment
in the popular satirical print is almost identical. Before their respective
defeats, although pamphleteers wrote against them extensively, they
scarcely figure in any satirical context whatsoever, but once they were
defeated and humiliated and no longer represented political forces to be
reckoned with, a veritable deluge of satires laughs them to scorn. The
function of this post-facto satire was radically different from that of its
modern counterpart: its purpose was to set a psychological coping stone
on the opponents' defeat by driving home the knowledge of their humilia-
tion and to release pent-up tension in the mind of the spectator by inviting
him to laugh at that which he had previously had reason to fear. By con-
trast the religious polemical prints of the period-for the most part
Protestant in origin-never indulge in such mirthful treatment even though
in other respects, such as their imagery and the pattern of their production,
they are strikingly similar. The necessary preconditions for laughing satire
were simply not given: the Counter-Reformationwas not to be overthrown
by the stroke of a sword and the threat it constituted was far more perma-
nent than that produced by its secular counterpart. Nor do these Protestant
religious satirists ever represent known personalities, but restrict them-
selves to drawing non-personal, mythologized Jesuits and Popes. Unlike
their modern descendants, the cartoonists of the seventeenth century were
neither court jesters nor men hired by an anxious public to whistle in the
dark and dismiss the bogy man with a well-timed joke! The deceptive
laughter of the modern cartoonist was entirely alien to them, and the
continuing survival of the Papacy and the Society of Jesus as real and
active threats to the religious liberty of Protestant Europe precluded any
attempt to show them in a ridiculous light: in the satirists' view these were
the agents of Antichrist and anything which might obscure this essential
'truth' and produce that amused and contemptuous sympathy which speaks
from the laughing satires directed towards the defeated Frederick and
Tilly was accordingly sedulously avoided.
The purpose of the foregoing remarks was to attempt a modification of
certain assertions which Streicher made in his article 'On a Theory of
1 See W. A. Coupe, The GermanIllustratedBroadsheetin the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols.
(Baden-Baden, 1966/67), 1, Ch. 4, pp. 65-91.

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 A THEORY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE 95
Political Caricature' and to lay particular emphasis on the more positive
aspects of caricature, which are so often ignored in theoretical writings.
Since it is the common lot of humanity, as St. Paul tells us, to know only
in part, the theoretician will probably never be able-least of all in the
case of a subject so many-sided as the political cartoon-to evolve a truly
general theory of universal applicability. I hope my theological position
will not be misconstrued when I suggest that, far from allowing this state
of affairs to depress us unduly, we should take comfort and cheer from the
observation which Mephisto addressesto the young seeker after theoretical
knowledge: 'Grey, dear friend, is all theory, And green the golden tree of
life'.

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