The origins of political cartoons

During the 15th century ,  Pieter Bruegel, a painter satiric-based was being known by the population due to his abstract and absurds paintings of weird inventions and symbolism.

By the 16th century , Martin Luther started to pay a special attention to Bruegel's style, during a debate about reformation against Pope Alexander VI . At the same time, the leadership within the villages and towns were risen up by a merchant class in Germany. Luther though that these group of people could help him to support his new reforms. After being successful in collecting these people's support, Luther anticipate his success in obtaining the support of the masses. In order to do that, Luther started to spread out posters and illustrated booklets showing Biblical scenes that everyone could recognise in every major towns and villages. Next to them , he put the same picture but using  caricatures of members of the Catholic Church in a antagonist perspective . This was the birth of political cartoons.



(Paraphrasing text from "Early Formulations of American Identity, Ideals, and Ideas" By David Thorn)

Introduction/Background planning Essay

In order to understand the power of political cartoons and their influence, it may be wise to look back in time when the first political cartoons were made  .

It is believed that the first appearance of political cartoons was around the 16th century . The political cartoon's target has always been the population,  the masses. The population has been always very easy to handle, and politics use the media to do so . In the other hand, these charicatures were also produced in newspaper and also found in pamphlets,  prints,etc. This was the only way for the people to make the audience concern about what it was really happening in the country. The politics started to seeing this as an inconvenient and poison for their personal purpose of manipulating the masses.

The development of technological advances was the key and propulsory element to provide the strength  that political cartoons needed. The discovery of the print helped to spread copies from the same drawing, reaching to a incredible amount of people in comparison to the past. The use of images instead of heavy texts was very effective and caught a whole new level of audience, whereas at that time no every peeseant couldn't read or write, so the message could reach to an-alphabets and the working class, not just middle-high class  regardless of background.

Consumerism, Lecture

Persuasion, Society, Brand and culture

                      

No Logo by Naomi Klein         Century of self by Adam Curtis

Sigmund Freud creates psychoanalyse (1858-1939)
Freud argues that human follows its animalistic instinct , is born with it.
Modern society creates laws,rules and lifestyle that restrict our desires,will and instinct, heading society to a state of permanent unhappiness, repressing our natural urges.

Conflict between civilisation and modern society, and as consequences, terrible actions are made, for instance wars .

Freud's nephew Edward Bernays , founder of Public Relations. 

Half propaganda/ Half press agent.

Based on his uncle's ideas.

Fordism (1863-1947) 

Invention of Ford (car's company) and the beginning of mass production crisis 

New advertisement techniques appears as strategy to break this crisis.

- Marketing hidden needs, By Vance Packard













-8 psychological techniques found on advertisement to help sell a product.

• Selling emotional security
• Selling reassurance of worth
• Selling ego-grafitication 
• Selling creative outlets 
• Selling love objects
• Selling sense of power
• Selling sense of roots
• Selling immortality 

After Russian revolution, the West was scared of this idea os revolution would cross the oceans and alter ate their consumerism system. 

In consequence, the Great Depression occurs in America (1930's) 

Then, Roosevelt and "The new Deal" comes to America ( 1933-36) 

Charging citizens taxes and using the money to expand their manufactures, and get back to business of consumption.

Bernays was involucred in this movement and was one of the main propulsory element for this to happens. 

World's fair, a celebration of all the products you could buy in America 

-Vision of the future 

-Consumerism a ideological project

-Thought consumption our desires will be met . 

Essay mapping structure

INTRODUCTION

This essay will examine the impact of cartoons from a political and historical point of view, and to analyse the influence of caricatures during periods of political and social upheaval.

Point One : The origins of political cartoons

- Why did they appear and what purpose they have ? 

Point Two : How satirical cartoons have affected history 

- how political cartoons has affected our society and the world that surrounded us ?

- Are they a solution or a problem ? 

Point Three : Modern means of communication and how cartoons have adapted to modern days 

- How have they survive during the years ?

- Media expansion and new ways of communication. 

Point Four : Caricatures as a protest 

-  How effective caricatures are  nowadays 

- Why caricatures are that effective as a way of protest? 

CONCLUSION

Summarise all the essay map and give and objective opinion about it.

Images :

Essay references

In order to get a better approach to my essay question, this post is going to include every bit of information related directly or indirectly to my essay. This will work as a supporting reminder to help me to go back anytime looking for references to support my ideas and to create a background and part of my analysis .

I will include book references, essays, academic writings , quotes, images and more :

Books:
- "The art of Controversy: Political cartoons and their enduring power" By Victor Navasky

Websites: 
- https://depaul.digication.com/christine_gensingers_word_projects2/Political_Cartoon_Essay

- http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma96/puck/part1.html

- https://news.ku.edu/2014/03/13/journalism-professor-analyzes-role-political-cartoons-social-media-during-syrian-crisis

Essays: 

Images: 
- http://www.buzzfeed.com/victornavasky/15-historic-cartoons-that-changed-the-world#.jbnzezQ5Ev

3 Essay images

We were asked as part of our essay development process, to look and select three different images to analyse on our essay related to our question .

After some researching, I found these three images (caricatures) which are mainly to my essay question .The three of them are related between each other  for the same particular reason; each of them caused a big impact, directly or indirectly to the political and social situation in these specific countries . They shown that illustration can be a dangerous weapon or tool to combat political issues in tough times. Something so simple as a caricature can be the key to "rise the awareness" and conscience of the people  , for very specific purposes.

These are the three images I selected:

-James Gillray 

"Napoleon once said that the English caricaturist James Gillray “did more than all the armies in Europe to bring me down.” Here’s an example: “Manic ravings, or Little Boney in a Strong Fit” (1803)."

-Thomas Nast

"Nast’s depictions of Boss Tweed are justly credited with bringing him and his corrupt Tammany Hall cronies down. Tweed famously said, “I don’t care a straw for your newspaper articles. My constituents can’t read. But they can’t help seeing them damn pictures”."

-Louis Raemaekers 

"During World War I, no cartoonist exercised more influence than Louis Raemaekers of Holland. Charged with “endangering Dutch neutrality,” his cartoons led the Germans to offer a 12,000 guilder reward for his capture, dead or alive. A German newspaper, summarizing the terms of peace Germany would exact after it won the war, declared that indemnity would be demanded for every one of Raemaekers’ cartoons. Example shown here: The German Tango."

Session task

As part of this group session, we were given a white A-2 sheet to work with.
 Individually, we were asked to illustrate (without using ANY words )10 different objects related to 1 of our 3 images we brought to the session.
Secondly, we had to illustrate 10 different places related to 1 of the 2 remaining images .
Then, we have to illustrate 10 different jobs related to the last picture we had left.
And finally, from all the drawings on the sheet,we had to select the best drawing which resemble the whole task and design 10 different drawings with it .

I must say it was kind of challenging  to illustrate something related to my pictures with the restriction of words. Although some points more than others, for instance , places.
On the other hand, it was great the need of squeeze our brains to come up with these related drawings caming from the same image, and some varieties are found on them but most important, all of them were related between each other.

The second part of the task was to illustrate on a new A-2 sheet  5 different drawings based on the last part of the first task.
My theme was about politics, corruption ,frauds, Wall Street, so I used strong figures and symbols which catch this stereotype straight aways such as sharks , suits and suitcases, ties and a mix of all of them together.
This is what I came up with


 

To summarise this, we had to write a title with just 1 word, the best word to match this storm of ideas. Mine was very obvious "CORRUPTION" .

The task was very inventive and productive. Made us all think about themes related to our images, then expand these ideas and going back to the starting point using a single word summarising  everything . It helped me to think  twice as much about my theme and rapidly. 

A 20.000 year non-linear history of the image

Aims

• To introduce a broad of range of visual communication from different cultures
• To provide you a visual resource to help us solve briefs creatively
• To introduce some philosophical and theoretical approaches to visual communication
• To demonstrate the power of visual communication 

 The first visual communication sign of our 

Reading and Understanding a text: PROPAGANDA

1. Tone of voice : Persuasive/ Informative
2.  Key points:
   - The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the masses
   - Invisible government
   - Ability to supply needed ideas
   - The way our democratic society is organised
   - Party machines
3. Key quotes :

- Society:" Some of the phenomena of this process are criticised- the manipulation of news, the inflaction of personality, and the general ballyhoo by which politicians and commercial products and social ideas are brought to the consciousness of the masses. The instruments by which public opinion is organised and focused may be misused. But such organisation and focusing are necessary to orderly life ". (Bernays E. 1928, 12) 

- Culture: " As civilization has become more complex [...] the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented ". (Bernays E. 1928, 12)

- Technology: " With the printing press and the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes, ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously over the whole of America".
(Bernays E. 1928, 12)

- Politics: " Modern means of communication [...] of getting quick replies and effective discussion- have opened a new world of political processes. Ideas and phrases can now be given an effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any personality and stronger than any sectional interest".  ( Wells H. 1928, 12)

- History: "But the American voters soon found that without organisation and direction their individual votes would produce nothing but confusion ". (Bernays E. 1928, 10 )


The main intention of Bernays in this text is to clarify and analyse the structure of the mechanism  which manipulates the mind of our society. This mechanism  is formed by a countless amount of groups and organisations ( As Bernays mentioned in the text, no a complete list has ever been made)  and also and no less important, by the special pleader who " seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity" (Bernays E.1928, 18).

This invisible government had managed to develop numerous ways to get the attention of society in a global way, able to transmit multiply message to different parts of the world at the same time, almost instantly. The new advances in technology ( such as the printing press, the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, etc) during these years made this phenomena possible and effective.
"Modern means of communication [...] of getting quick replies and effective discussion- have opened a new world of political processes. Ideas and phrases can now be given an effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any personality and stronger than any sectional interest".  ( Wells H. 1928, 12)

To summarise, society is cattle. The manipulation of our minds through propaganda make people think that we might have free will or choice but what we do not realise is that our choices had been already made by the system.

(Fight Club By Chuck Palahniuk)

Gathering and interpreting images

As one of the part of this task, we were encouraged to begin gathering images related to the theme/essay question of our choice ( posted a link on the previous post with up to 52 images) and visually respond to 3 of these images.

These are my three images and the three visual responses to the task:

( Mariano Rajoy, actual President of Spain and responsible of our crisis and the more of 60% of unemployment in the country ).

Quick sketch using pencils and fine liner pen + scanner and photoshop .

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(Anonymous collective )

Pencil and fine liner pen drawing + Scanner and photoshop .

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(Zapatero (Ex president of Spain) v.s Rajoy (President of Spain

"Find the differences " )

Quick pencil sketch and fine liner pen + Photoshop .

The idea of this illustration is that these two persons represent two of the most important political parties from Spain. They fight and argue each other about who is better and how different they are in public and campaigns, but the truth is that they principles are the same, they just change turns of who is going to be President for the next 4 years, and viceversa, leaving no opportunities to other parties who are fighting for the people.