Dear Ismail,
hope you are well.
I am sending you my brend new article "Cartoons: the art of dissenters".
This article is about the ways of development of modern cartoon art.
I am very interested in your opinion.
Sorry for troubling you.
Best wishes,
Vladimir |
Cartoons:
the Art of Dissenters
|
 |
by
Vladimir Kazanevsky
|
This article attempts to demonstrate the
new trends of modern cartoons "without captions". To do
this, we must consider the stages of emergence, formation and
development of this genre of art up to the present day. Has the
imaginative world of cartoons changed? Did the emergence of personal
computers and the Internet influence the visual embodiment of
cartoons? Have the "spirit of the absurd" and
philosophical foundations of cartoons changed? And finally,
what is the place of cartoon art in today's society? |
Modern
cartoons "without captions" have existed for almost a
century. These cartoons appeared in the 1930s in France and the
United States under the influence of innovative ideas in the visual
arts, literature, theater and philosophy.
Cartoons "without captions" are fundamentally
different from the traditional centuries-old comic and from
satirical graphics, which still exist today, for example in the form
of political cartoons. This essay deals exclusively with the cartoon
"without captions", leaving aside other forms of cartoon
art, which were developed under different laws. In this essay, we
will refer to the cartoon "without captions" simply as
cartoon.
|
First
of all we are interested in whether the art of cartoons has changed
during its existence. Are "grotesque, ironic, buffoonery"
and a "humor of paradoxes, oddities and quirks" still the
characteristics of cartoons in the present day? These properties
were given to cartoons by researcher Nina Dmitrieva at the time of
their emergence in the 1930s [1, 256]. |
Not
only the visual representations, but also the semantic contents of
cartoons has
changed almost imperceptibly in recent decades. This is primarily
caused by a variety of radical social phenomena, as well as the
emergence of new technical possibilities and means of communication. |
Of
course, the core of a cartoon is the semantic content. It is here
that we find the "comic charge", the philosophical and
other conscious or subconscious ideas of the author, or the lack of
them. What happened to "humor of paradoxes, oddities and quirks"? |
The
lonely man on a small island decorated by a symbolic palm tree is
almost gone from cartoons. There were simply too many such men, a
whole army, and they did not seem quite so lonely anymore. They
filled the magazines, newspapers and the digital space of the
Internet. Viewers no longer believed in the lonely men on their
desolate islands. However, this did not end the notion of
existential loneliness as a subject for cartoons. Other, modern,
symbols have come in place of the islets, which we will discuss
later. |
The
blow by a bat or stick on the head of someone coming around a corner
has ceased to be unexpected. The artists understand this and do not
hide their insidious characters around corners anymore. Instead,
they began to look for other ways to "blow" the viewer.
Roughly the same thing happened with the act of slipping on a banana
peel. Heroes of cartoons began to get around this obstacle invented
by artists. Another cartoon cliche which has become outdated is the
"cake in the face". However, even now there are some cases
where the cartoon hero suddenly throws a cake in the face of someone.
It looks like the work of an artist without inspiration. Instead of
coming up with a new idea, the artists decided to throw a stale cake
to the viewer. Is this not "strange humor, full of the
grotesque and of oddities"? |
The
leaning tower of Pisa will fall down only when cartoonists are tired
of drawing this image. |
The
eternal creative "helpers" of cartoonists, the characters
of Don Quixote and Sancho Pаnzа, have become less likely
to feature in the graphic works of satirical artists. Maybe finally
cartoonists became
ashamed for using Miguel de Cervantes' famous characters in vain? |
In
cartoons, the ostrich continues to bury his head in the sand. But he
does this ever more infrequently
and reluctantly. Are cartoonists aware that in real life,
ostriches never do this? When these birds are scared of something
they just run away. And so another cartoon myth gradually disappears. |
The
most persistent fighter for peace is still the white dove. This
image was drawn by Pablo Picasso for the First World Peace Congress
in 1949. Almost immediately after the appearance of white bird as
the emblem of peace, it playfully migrated to cartoons. So far, the
dove with an olive branch in its beak is the most loyal supporter of
pacifism, a fighter against militarists of all stripes. |
In
antiquity, Death was already portrayed as a gaunt old woman in a
black cloak and with a scythe. The old women which
is depicted in the ancient frescoes, in the engravings by
Albrech Dürer and in other works is strikingly similar. There is a
feeling that artists have always drawn the same mysterious lady.
Death did not escape the attention of cartoonists. For them there is
no detail of life, even the most tragic, that would not be subject
to reflection and witty ridicule. They believe that, as Arthur
Schopenhauer said, "death does not interrupt the eternal
becoming, it kills only the individual." Illustrations of this
philosophic statement can serve numerous cartoons, which show the
coitus of a mortal man with old bony woman. And the apotheosis of
"eternal becoming" are cartoon images of pregnant Death (Fig.1). |

|
There
are a lot of cartoons that are somehow connected with death. They
depict executions, suicides, war, murder, and so on. Basically,
these cartoons are in the area of black humor, the main purpose of
which, according to Freud, is "to avoid dissatisfaction from
internal sources" [2]. By resorting to black humor, cartoonists
try to overcome the great tragic irony that is life. As noted by
Boris Tsigulevsky, the artist's position in this case is "not a
mockery and pretense (this
is on the side of life) and not a game or humor, but his serious
concern about their fate, effort, or even heroism" [3]. The
Boston World Dictionary of Literary Terms defines black humor as
"humor meant to overturn moral values, causing a grim
smile." It also says that black humor is a cynical way to
respond to evil and the absurdity of life. According to supporters
of black humor, it "has a psychotherapeutic effect". Black
humor is a “way to laugh where every other way of describing the
evil will just evoke crying" [4]. Black humor confidently
settled in the cartoon world. |
Grim
Sisyphus continues to roll his eternal stone to the top of the
mountain, a Trojan horse can always be found near the gate, Rodin's
thinker continues to pose for artists intent on mocking him. A lot
of funny, sad, proud and evil characters of literature, film,
animation, painting, sculpture and theaters have settled in cartoons.
Alas, many of these "comfortable" images for cartoonists
have become stereotypes, and some of them irrevocably obsolete. |
Use
of the same images, use of common methods to achieve comic effects,
in the end, led to cartoonists involuntarily repeating predecessors.
The "heuristicity" of cartoons began to fade. Plenty of
cartoon clones began to appear regularly on the pages of newspapers
and magazines at the end of the twentieth century. It was not a
problem of direct plagiarism or imitation, but
a problem of cartoonists thinking in stereotypes. |
The
cartoon myths" of the past began to gradually dissipate.
Naturally, their place was occupied by something new. |
Skyjackings
by armed terrorists became frequent at the end of the last
millennium. Subsequently, the press was filled with cartoons in
which the main characters were hijackers. The terrorists in cartoons
hijacked everything in the air, on the ground or in the water. |
Airplanes
hijacked by terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City
in the beginning of this century. And then a cartoon appeared which
depicts two planes crashing into giant sizes pencils... |
The
wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the "color revolutions"
in Africa, Asia, Europe and numerous of terrorist attacks have
created new characters in cartoons, for example armed men in
camouflage uniforms. One of the most important characters in modern
cartoons became the armed terrorist hiding his face under an evil
black mask. The forces of peace, embodied either by children or
by the dove of peace are fighting against this terrible
character in cartoons. And they win often. But more often they are
defeated. Black humor reigns in cartoons. A terrorist cuts an
unfortunate pencil with a knife like a victim's throat (Fig.2). This
is a new myth in the world of cartooning. |

|
Refugees
fleeing from the terrorist evil have also become new favorite
characters of cartoonists. cartoonists are sympathetic to the
refugees, condemning those who prevent them in their struggle to
find a new life. |
Supermarket
trolleys confidently settled in the minds of cartoonists. This image
has become a compelling symbol of the consumer society. |
Cartoonists
have also turned their critical gaze to the Internet. Cartoon
computers and the symbols associated with the Internet have not only
filled the Internet, but also the pages of still existing print
media. Modern cartoonists became friends with the symbol of the
social network Facebook in the form of the letter F. This popular
means of communication once again forced artists to recall the
existential loneliness of man in the world. On the one hand,
formally being a sign of communication between people, this symbol
only emphasizes the loneliness of a real personality. Facebook and
other similar means of communication deny direct human interaction.
Existential anguish that came from the cartoons which depicted a
lonely little man on a desert island, are embodied in the modern
symbol now. A tiny island, a man sitting on the sand, burying his
gaze to the screen of a laptop, tablet or smart phone. And a huge
symbol of social network F, which is vaguely reminiscent of a palm
tree rises above them (Fig.3). |

|
Contemporary
cartoonists draw their inspiration from brand new subjects, images
and symbols. However, this refers only to the myths on which the
semantic content of cartoons is built. Has the "spirit" of
semantic content of cartoons changed? Can we still characterize
cartoons as "humor of paradoxes, oddities and quirks"?
This will be discussed later after we contemplate what happened to
the visual embodiment of the cartoons or, speaking with the words of
Sigmund Freud, with their "façade formations." |
Cartoons
mostly came in the form of graphic drawings in the first half of the
last century . Cartoons had an inherently
"linear" style”; "naive" and "simplistic",
styled to look like children's drawings. The thin vibrating line,
easily showing space and form, suddenly nervously formed a dark mass,
or broke off, leaving a place for "air". Alternatively,
the line can was strong, tearing out shapes from flat space by short
rapid movements of the pen... Thus was the art of cartoonists who
can be considered the pioneers of cartoons. Nina Dmitrieva mentions
cartoonists George Fischer, Saul Steinberg, James Thurber, Maurice
Sinet, Albert Dubou, Jean Effel, Jean-Jacques Sempé, Andre Francois,
Jean-Maurice Bosc, Chaval and Sam Gross. Drawings of these artists
have published in the magazine The
New Yorker. Many researchers, such as Jacques Lefev, believe
that the modern cartoon
originated here and was developed by the creative team of this
magazine [1, 256]. |
The
first twenty-five years of The New Yorker's existence has been
called a "golden age". The method of selection of cartoons
for publication in the magazine was complicated. Art editors of the
magazine made a preliminary selection of cartoons. Then the
Editorial Board selected the best.
Editor-in-chief Harold Ross, who had unquestionable authority,
made the final decision [5]. Mr.
Ross constantly asked artists to make captions under the cartoons
shorter and shorter, until there appeared cartoons "without
captions". Harold Ross said jokingly, "Everybody talks of The
New Yorker’s art - that is, its illustrations - and it has
been described as the best magazine in the world for someone who
cannot read" [5]. |
A
"corporate" style of comic art of The New Yorker magazine
gradually formed. William Hewison
somewhat tendentiously wrote: "The team of Ross tore up
the old formula of cartoons into pieces and threw a lot of them in
the trash, because those were hard, naturalistic, overloaded. They
strove for simplicity, focus and movement.
Essentially, they gave preference to light and visual humor.
It can be assumed that each of the cartoons, which is created today
in the UK, Europe or anywhere else, is a direct inheritance of
graphic humor of the magazine The
New Yorker of this period " [6]. |
The
cartoons first appeared to the public in Europe in the comic
magazine l'Os à Moëlle,
which had the subtitle "The official organ of daffy people"
in 1938 [1, 255]. |
The
"Linear" style has dominated in the world of cartoons
until a few decades ago. |
Here
we can recall the works of Jean-Jacques Sempe, Jeans Maurice Bosc,
Jacques-Armand Cardon, Maurice
Sinet , Henry Buttner, Claud Serre, Ronald Topor ...( Fig.4). |

|
"Some
people don`t like when I show what`s in their mind,"
said Ronald Topor, who preached a philosophy of "escape
from boredom" [7, 33]. This master of cartoon art said, "A
society is driven by fear. I have fear too, but I am trying to get
rid of unnecessary fears " [7, 37]. Editor of The World
Encyclopedia of Cartoons, Maurice Horn, said that "R. Topor is
a master of black humor who blends the most far-out and disturbing
images into a deceptively classical style" [7, 33]. This
statement is useful to us when we will talk about the
semantic content of the cartoons. |
Black
and white cartoons continued to dominate after the Second World War.
However, cartoonists also used "color" in their work.
Often, they did this on purpose, because sometimes "color"
is the essence of humor in cartoons. Color can be a kind of
communication in cartoon art. For example, one of the main "color"
characters in cartoons is a chameleon. The coloring of the skin of
this lizard is changed by the color of the environment. Another
frequenter of cartoons is a street light. For example, cartoonist
can designate the "existential ban without a shadow of hope"
by the red color on street light (Fig.5). In addition, the red color
symbolizes the vitality, passion, energy, enterprise and sexuality.
And as you know, sexuality is tempting for creation of cartoonist.
All that is "below the belt" is amusing, funny and
entertaining to spectators. |

|
How
can I draw a black and white rainbow? Or the artist's palette on
which the paints are mixed? There are cartoons, in which "color"
becomes absolute semantic content, a landmark instrument that
represents a violation of the expected stereotypes of color
relations. Cartoons
which are the based on well-known paintings, such as The
Festival of Fools and The
Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel, The
Scream by Edvard Munch, Leonardo
da Vinci`s Mona Lisa etc.
will be not spectacular without colors for viewers. |
Color
is used in cartoons as an auxiliary element. For example, to attract
the attention of the viewer to the main component of the cartoon, on
which a comic effect is based. In this case, artists use basically
complimentary color combinations, or just one additional color.
Sometimes the color is introduced to create
an emotional and psychological effect in the cartoon. |
Of
course, at the time when in cartoons the "line" dimnated,
there were artists who preferred "colored" drawings and
paintings. Among these artists were Rene Magritte, Jean-Jacques
Folon, Vlasta Zabransky, Ronald Searle, Miroslav Bartak, Guillermo
Mordillo and others. But the "scenic color" cartoons at
this time was rather rare. |
By
the end of the last millennium "color" gradually began to
prevail in cartoon art. Cartoon paintings have become increasingly
more common, and now share space with "linear" cartoons in
the pages of magazines and newspapers, international exhibitions and
on the Internet. There are brilliant cartoonists-painters, such as
Alessandro Gatto, Jerzy Gluszek, Pawel Kuczynski, Grzegorz Szumowski,
Konstantin Sunnerberg, Muhittin Koroglu, Gerhard
Gepp, Peter Nieuwendijk, Florian Doru Crihana, Dahuan Xia,
Mahmoudi Houmayoun, Cau Gomez... ( Fig.6). |

|
There
are a few reasons why "colors" began to dominate in
cartoons. One such reason is the emergence in the late twentieth
century the personal computers and the Internet. A magician appeared
for the cartoonists named Photoshop. The artists no longer only used
traditional paint but also successfully began to employ virtual
painting techniques. The possibility has appeared to spread the
cartoons free on the Internet with no visible restrictions, without
censorship. A "colored" cartoons look much more attractive
to viewers. After heated debate, the international cartoon community
agreed to give the same status to cartoons that have been created
with the computer as to hand-drawn artwork. Computer-created
cartoons began to
coexist with original works at various exhibitions. Some cartoonists
have become literally virtuosos of computer cartoon art, such as the
Colombian artists Elena Ospina. |
In
addition, the Internet gave artistseasy access to photographs of
objects and subjects of the world. This helped to saturate the
cartoons of detailing by using the technique of "photographic
accuracy." "Façade formations" of cartoons becoming
more approximate to the real world. Artists such as Pawel Kuczynski,
Agim Sulaj, Paolo Dalponte and others began to create a more
compelling reality of the cartoon world (Fig.7). |

|
In
the last decades there has been a tendency of saturation in cartoons
by "colors", as well as a barely perceptible drift from
graphics to paintings. In addition, the cartoons have moved closer
to realism. In this context, we can talk also about the
metamorphoses of the semantic contents of the cartoons. We will not
talking about the plots of cartoons, new cartoon characters, myths
of the cartoons, which we have already discussed. More interesting
for us is the essence of cartoons. |
The
process of creating cartoons is subject to certain laws. In his
discussion about the "comic" effects
Arthur Koestler wrote: "Unexpected lateral ideas or
events with two normally incompatible matrices produces a comic
effect..." [8]. This model of "comic" effects is
easily applicable in the art of cartoon.
For example, in the article "Why is it so funny?:
conceptual integration in humorous examples" Seana Coulson made
the attempt to analyze the cartoons, in particular political
cartoons [9]. He used the theory of "conceptual integration"
of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, as well as the ideas of
Douglas Hofstadter and Liane Gabora about mixing frameworks of
abstract structures [10,11]. Very interesting for us is "An
Affordance Theory Analysis of Cartoon Humor" by Dean H. Owen
[12] and "A two-stage model for the appreciation of jokes and
cartoons" by Jerry M. Suls [13]. Recall also the sentence by
Maurice Horn: "R. Topor is a master of black humor who blends
the most far-out and disturbing images into a deceptively classical
style". So, we see that creative methods of cartoons are quite
universal. It is by such methods were created cartoons, which we can
define as"grotesque, ironic, buffoonery". |
Albert
Camus believed that the absurd is born from the comparison of not
comparable, alternative, antinomic or conflicting concepts, and
"the wider the gap between the members of the comparisons, the
higher the degree of absurdity" [14, 37]. Thus arose the absurd
world of cartoons which deny common sense. The absurd cartoons, as
well as humor in general, appears when mixing two different concepts.
These are the roots of the "humor
of paradoxes, oddities and quirks." That is, a cartoons is a
reflection of the philosophy
of the absurd. No wonder the brightest hero of many cartoons became
Sisyphus, pushing
his eternal stone to the top of the mountain. The foot of the
mountain, a huge rock, a solitary figure Sisyphus and the top of the
mountain create many opportunities for graphic jokes. However,
foremost cartoonists are interested in the tragic fate of the hero,
his despair and self-affirmation. Such absurdity is desirable for
critical minds. Here is what wrote Albert Camus in his treatise,
"His gaunt face barely distinguishable from the stone. I
see this man coming down heavy, but at a steady pace to the torment
that has no end. At this time, consciousness returned to him
with the breath, inevitable as his suffering. And in every moment,
as he descends from the top down into the lair of the gods, it is
above its destiny. He`s more solid than his stone "[15].
Sisyphus is the hero of absurd (Fig.8). |

|
Recall
also the social absurd phenomenon of depersonalizing people. Arthur
Schopenhauer believed that human history is presented as a world
where "there always is the same person with the same intentions
and the same destiny" [16]. In such a world "each other
becomes like the other..." as noted by Martin Heidegger [17].
The personification of society is a "crowd" and its
representative is "small, miserable, gray man in the crowd who
lost the spirit, seeking for equality," by Friedrich Nietzsche
[18]. Gustave Le Bon in his work "The Psychology of the masses"
characterized the crowd as follows: "Strange in the psychology
of masses is following: ... only by one fact of the transformation
into the mass they acquire a collective soul" [19]. In addition,
Le Bon noted a decline of intellectual achievements of a man by his
dissolving in mass. William McDougall said, that "a slight
intelligences decrease a higher intelligences to their level..."
[20]. Wilfred Trotter in the tendency to unite people towards the
mass in general has seen "a continuation of biological
multicellular all higher organisms" [21]. Around the same time,
in the first half of the twentieth century, the individual leveling
process of persons is reflected in the different genres of art,
including the cartoons. |
Characters
of traditional cartoons of the past always had pronounced individual
traits. Artists of the past reflected
the grotesque images of the "carnival world". In the
1930s, cartoonists began to treat their heroes quite differently.
Increasingly, they began to resort to stylization of images using
methods of "naive art". Heroes of cartoons turned into
primitive little men in the crowd, the symbols of the absurd world,
portrayed as herd animals, duplicates traveling from one
cartoon to the next. They came not from the real world but slipped
out of the absurd subconscious of artists. These heroes like to
exist in the impersonal world. |
The
depersonalization of man in cartoons is especially convincing where
the crowd is present. Cartoonists mostly have represented the
accumulation of people as the mass of men with "downmix"
intelligence. Artists depicted "the faces of psychological
masses" having "collective
souls" to reflect the masks of "higher multi-cellular
organisms," as absurd monstrosities (Fig.9). |

|
Once
again, we can notice that much in a cartoon is close to the
philosophy of existentialism, which is saturated with the spirit of
absurdity. And many of the cartoons can be considered as the
illustrations of the statements of philosophers. But what about
surrealism, which in fact was born by the absurd? How close is
surrealism to the art of cartoons? A precursor of surrealism I.
Bosch already used the "oddities and quirks" with
paradoxical forms of mixing in his mysterious paintings. The same
methods were used by Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux, Yves
Tanguy, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte...
The competition between surrealism and absurdity in the world
of cartoons was won by the last. Probably absurdity has a
relationship with the real world; it recognizes the laws of the real
world but denies these, thus creating its own laws. Surrealism does
not recognize any laws and exists by itself. |
However,
as we noted above, painting cartoons gradually began to conquer the
space of comics in the late twentieth century. It is in these works
that manifestations of surrealism can be seen. Such cartoons are not
constructed according to the laws of humor. Semantic contents of
these works are based on a mixing of concepts. This does not make
talking about these cartoons that they do not have "grotesque,
ironic, buffoonery". From this perspective, we can recall some
cartoons by artists such as Alessandro Gatto, Andrej Popov, Erzy
Glushek, Muhittin Koroglu, Florian Doru Crihana, Mahmoudi Houmayoun
and others. In the works of these masters of cartoons we can easily
discern echoes of surrealism (Fig. 10, 11). |

|
|

|
It's
time to talk about the place of cartoons in society. Since the
existence of cartoon art humanity has plunged into the abyss of war,
has made scientific and technological leaps, has
detonated nuclear bombs, and has ventured out into cosmic
space and plunged headlong into Internet space... It can be expected
that in our day cartoon art has moved in the scale of human values. |
Let's
go back to the time of occurrence and becoming a cartoon art.
Speaking about the pros and cons of humor, including cartoons, which
developed "in all areas, including politics, art, mass
communications, advertising, promotion of knowledge", Nina
Dmitrieva said, "Cons can be found in the exsanguination of
satire, which is dissolved and dispersed in a continuous stream of
humor and in lowering the value of the laughter as the strong
weapons hitting exactly the goal that is worthy of strike" [1,
261]. In other words, satire gave way to the absurd, with its own
specific sense of humor and irony. Cartoonists have started to show
an abstract collective man and a generalized absurd world. There was
no the place for satire in this world. The mural by artist Saul
Steinberg can be considered the apotheosis of the triumph of the
cartoons. It shows an ironic panorama of American society at the
World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. Saul Steinberg was very
popular at the time in the world.
Around a hundred solo exhibitions of the artist
were organized in New York, Washington, Chicago, Rome, Milan,
Paris, Zurich, Hamburg, Vienna, Amsterdam and other cities. This
great cartoonist was not only the author of graphic works, but also
frescoes, opera scenes, posters [22]. |
The
art of cartoons starts to win hearts of people in the second half of
the twentieth century. The cartoons confidently settled in Central
and Western Europe in the late forties - early fifties. From there
this kind of art migrated to Eastern Europe and began to conquer the
Soviet Union in the early sixties. The "wave" of cartoons
has swept Turkey and later Iran, after the revolution. As a result
of the easing of censorship and the actual opening of the borders, a
"cartoon explosion" occurred in China. Cartoons appeared
in Japan and South Korea, of course, influenced by American artists.
So, "the cartoon tsunami" swept across the globe from the
West to the East for half a century, excluding Japan and South Korea,
where it arrived across the Pacific Ocean from the East. This
striking march of the cartoon art suggests that humanity needs an
extraordinary ironic view of the world. And cartoons fully meet
these expectations. |
Notable
events in the world of cartoons are international competitions and
festivals, that emerged in the sixties of the last century. The most
popular, for example, are CARTOONFESTIVAL in the Belgian resort town
of Knokke - Heist, SATYRYCON in the Polish town of Legnica, DICACO
(2013 - SICACO) in the Korean city of Daejeon, INTERNATIONAL HUMOR
EXHIBITION in the Brazilian town of Piracicaba, PORTO CARTOON WORLD
FESTIVAL in the city of Porto and a lot of others. These cartoon
contests have their internal laws, codes, customs, habits and heroes.
In over half a century, they have been in touch with a whole
generation of artists. |
One
of the oldest and most famous cartoon contests is organized by the
team of Japanese newspaper The
Yomiuri Shimbun. It existed
29 years and was closed in 2008. A total of 289554 cartoons were
sent to this competition.
The organizers had declared the official reason for the closure of
the competition was that the "contest has already made quite a
significant contribution to the art of cartoons." Around this
time, the interest to the art of cartoon in Japan began to fade
noticeably, says Ayako Saito, press drawing teacher of Kyoto
Seika University. |
A
whole galaxy of new cartoons competitions have been organized in
recent years that mainly exist in virtual space. These competitions
have served as a good stimulus for the development of cartoon art. |
Of
special note is one
phenomenon. As noted by many researchers, cartoon art originated in
New York city and later in Paris in the thirties of the last century.
But which kind of cartoons are popular in these cities today? It's
amazing, but, although cartoons are very popular in the world,
namely in France and the US, this art has lost its position. In
recent decades, in these countries the public has not been
interested in political cartoons or in traditional humorous drawings,
which have verbal support. Why? Cartoon art is popular in Turkey,
Iran, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, countries of the former
Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe countries... That is, in those
countries where there exist acute socio-political and economic
problems and there are many people who dissent with the social
injustice. Recall that cartoon art originated and developed in the
US and in France during the global economic crisis of 1929 - 1939.
This means that cartoons thrive in a social environment where the
dissatisfaction of the majority creates the need to release the
energy of social discontent. From this point of view, the art of
cartoon can be called "art of dissenters". |
Totalitarian
regimes and tyranny are fertile breeding ground for the creation of
cartoons. For example, cartoons
penetrated the Soviet Union from across the relatively liberal
countries of Eastern Europe, in spite of the "iron curtain".
It should be recalled that the method of socialist realism
dominated in those days in Soviet
art. Official cartoons had to praise the party leaders and had to
criticize the external and internal enemies of socialism. Just such
official cartoons were published in the communist party press
without exception, and the only press was party press. But the
shoots of free thought appeared in the Soviet Union in the early
sixties of the last century, during the Khrushchev "thaw".
"Informal" cartoons began to be published in the newspaper
Literaturnaya Gazeta,
magazines Smena, Tourist
and other publications in these years. The art of cartoons became
very popular among the "dissent" intelligentsia.
Party functionaries called these "informal"
cartoons "the humor of young" [23]. In addition to the
novelty of the paradoxical nature and philosophical ideas of
cartoons, the intellectuals liked the allegory of this kind of art.
Published cartoons allegorically criticized the existing socialist
system. When in the seventies of last century Brezhnev regime
tightened censorship, it was too late. Nonconformist artist Sergej
Tunin described the works of cartoonists as "fuck off in the
pocket". "The allegory is universal because it is similar
to a mathematical formula, if it is accurate and elegant, it is
applicable anywhere, anytime. Any value can be substituted into the
"formula" to enjoy the wit of the artist as their own",
he noted [24]. |
Cartoon
art became firmly entrenched in Soviet society. Cartoonists -
nonconformists began to send their works to international
competitions illegally. The artists Valentin Rozantsev, Sergej Tunin,
Mikhail Zlatkovsky, Garif Basyrov, Leonid Tishkov and others were
honored with awards at many international festivals of cartoons.
Cartoonists began to organize underground exhibitions of cartoons,
and grouped together in informal amateur clubs [25]. Censorship
eased with the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev and cartoons
migrated to the pages of Mass Media. |
"There
are times when satire has to restore that which was destroyed by
pathos", so noted Stanisław Jerzy Lec. After the fall of
the "pathos" regime of the Communist Party, cartoonists
began to worry about new symbols and images in the former Soviet
Union. For example, one of the main characters of cartoons became
the flag. Obviously, because the flag was "untouchable"
for artists in Soviet times. A strong symbol of power turned into a
dirty doormat in the cartoons. Ruthless cartoonists allowed their
heroes to cut off the pieces of flag cloth to sew to sew on pants
and other clothing, or allowed them to clean their shoes with this
fabric... A headless man carries a flag that resembles an ax, that
was apparently used to cut off his head. This is one of the most
famous cartoon with the hero-flag construction, made by artist
Mikhail Zlatkovsky. For cartoonists the flag has become a convenient
tool for the expression of their social ideas (Fig.12). |

|
Another
object of ridicule used
by cartoonists in the countries of the former Soviet Union was the
ballot box, the ephemeral symbol of totalitarian power. The
political elections in Soviet times were formal acts where results
were a foregone conclusion. The people of the former Soviet Union
began to think about the elections quite differently . Political
elections became real, although often accompanied by fraud. The
ballot box has taken a worthy place in cartoons. Restless
cartoonists began to draw keyholes on ballot boxes, made them as
into hats of magicians, etc. |
Thus,
the irony in the art of cartoons in countries of the former Soviet
Union began to get a satirical coloring. |
Continuing
the conversation about the role of cartoons in today's society, we
must recall religion. How do believers relate to the art of cartoons
and, conversely, what do the ironic artists think about religion?
There were times in history when church leaders have hated
satirical drawings, but sometimes they asked artists to help in the
fight against religious opponents (for example, the struggle between
Catholics and Huguenots in France became a kind of "duel"
between satirical artists in the time of the Reformation).
It has happened that the secular authorities officially called for
the satirical artists to criticize religion (for example, in an
atheistic state of the USSR). On the contrary, the authority forbade
artists to create cartoons of religious subjects in some cases.
Korean professor Cheong San Lim called his dissertation "Christian
education utilizing cartoon and animation". This project
is based on the fact that in the Bible is widely used
“containing elements that are inherent in cartoon art, i.e.
parable, symbol, dream, vision, satire, humor and allegory"
[26]. Professor tried to build a bridge between the art of cartoons
and religion by the using cartoons in a Christian education. |
In
the thirties of the last century formally religious cartoons emerged.
These were not anticlerical drawings. In such cartoons Bible stories
have helped the artists to convey a "secular" message. For
example, in many cartoons Noah's Ark
has served as an allegory of the protection of the
environment from pollution . Or cartoonists adorn a scene of the
execution of Jesus Christ with consumer advertising. They do not
criticize religion, but the dominance of inappropriate advertising.
Cartoonists liked to
depict the Last Supper on the eve of Jesus' execution as well, often
parodying the famous fresco by Leonardo da Vinci... Many other
characters of Bible became the heroes of cartoons by artists from
around the world. Jean Effel has created a series of comical
parodies of biblical scenes. |
Cartoonists
have not only exploited Christian religious imagery. Hindu god Shiva
who embodies the masculine universe frequently has appeared in
cartoons as well. One of the seven gods of happiness, communication,
joy and prosperity, Hotei, who was nicknamed "Canvas Bag",
was not only one of the characters of netsuke in Japan and China. `Cartoonists
like to depict this funny fat man. |
The
cartoons that depicted the Prophet Mohammed were published in the
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten
in September 2005. These publications have denoted the cross-cultural
conflict between the Muslim Arab world and the Western cultural
tradition. The confrontation escalated even more after the tragedy
in the office of the French satirical magazine Charlier
Hebdo in January 2015. We leave aside the essence of this
conflict, its ethical and social aspects. We are interested here how
this influenced the art of cartoons. We distinguish here only the
fact that the international community has given special attention to
the art of cartoons in the aftermath of these events. Many people
who have never been lovers and connoisseurs of this genre turned
their eyes tо cartoons. The role of cartoon art
has become more visible in society. |
Thus,
cartoon art has become more popular in the world. Did this affect
the art of cartoons? Did cartoons changed under the influence of
social expectations? Recall that in the recent years the main
characters of cartoons have been terrorist and refugees, who are the
victims of terror and war criminals. A huge set of drawings on
similar themes was created by the cartoonists in the last
years. Such cartoons can be attributed more to satire than to humor.
Cartoons have become increasingly filled with sarcasm and irony. For
example, the sad photos of Syrian refugee boy thrown out on the
beach in the Turkish town of Bodrum have appeared in the global Mass
Media on the 2nd of September 2015. Cartoonists from all
over the world responded
briskly. Several hundreds of cartoons based on this photo were
published on the Internet and in print media within a few days.
Although the photo was so convincing that it did not require
interpretation. This once again tells us that the emphasis of
cartoons has shifted towards satire. "Exsanguenations of
satire" in the cartoons and its "dissolving and dispersing
in a continuous stream of humor" in the time of occurrence and
development of the cartoons, about which Nina Dmitrieva wrote, seems
to have stopped. There has even been a reverse process. |
So,
cartoons "without captions" have fascinated mankind for
almost a century. Responding to the expectations of the people who
have been disagreed with social injustice, it originated during the
Great Depression under the influence of innovative ideas in the
visual arts, literature, theater, philosophy. The hitherto fertile
breeding ground for cartoons serves not only social disadvantages,
but also progress. Some popular cartoon characters and plots became
obsolete with time, and new ones appeared. In recent decades there
were noticeable changes in visual representation of cartoons, as
well as in their semantic contents. Cartoons began to be filled by
colors, became more persuasive in terms of realism. Increasingly,
there are picturesque cartoons, in some of which are visible
manifestations of surrealism. However, cartoons remains to gravitate
toward the spirit of the absurd. And finally, the cartoons have
become increasingly filled by sarcasm and satire. The art of
cartoons is still ironic, a witty manifestation of
a rebellious spirit. |
References |
1.
Dmitriev, N.
1973 Humor paradoxes, magazine "Foreign Literature", №6,
Moscow. |
2.
Freud Z. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,
1997 University Book, AST, St. Petersburg. |
3.
Tsigulevsky V.
1989 symbol, parody and paradox in the non-classical philosophy,
Shtiitsa, Chisinau. |
4.
Dictionary of World
Literary Terms: Criticism, Forms, Techniques,
1979
Boston,
Writer. |
5.
Stokes, C.
2015 The New
Yorker`s Ninetieth: Cartoons from 1925 to 1935, Internet:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/new-yorker-ninetieth-
cartoons-1925-1935
|
6.
Hewinson, W.
1951
A useful selection of cartoons from the first 25 years,
arranged in chronological
units in The New Yorker Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Album,
1925-1950. New York, Harpet & Brother. |
7.
Sabo, J. 1994
Topor, Witty
World International Cartoon Magazine, №17,33-37. |
8.
Koestler, A.
1964
The Act of Creation, London, Hutchinson. |
9.
Coulson, C.
2003
Why is it so funny?: conceptual integration in humorous
examples, |
Internet
http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/funstuff/funny.html9. |
10.
Fauconnier G. and Turner M.
1998
Conceptual Integration Networks, Cognitive Science 22,
133-187. |
11.
Hofstadter D. and Gabora L.
Synopsis of the workshop
on humor and cognition, Humor:
International 1989
Journal
of Humor Research, 2-4,
417-440. |
12.
Owen D.H.
An Affordance Theory
Analysis of Cartoon Humor, At Last The Last,
1988 WHIMSY
8, 134-139. |
13.
Suls J. M. A
Two-Stage Model for the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons: An
Information-Processing Analysis,
The Psychology of Humor,
Theoretical
Perspectives and Empirical Issues, Edited
by: Jeffrey H Goldstein,
81-100.
1972 Internet:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780122889509 |
14.
Камю, А.
1999 Бунтующий
человек,
ТЕРРА
Книжный
клуб,
Москва, 37. |
15.
Камю А.
Миф
о Сизифе.
Эссе об
абсурде,
Издательство
политической
1990
литературы,
Москва. |
16.
Шопенгауэр
А.
1900
Полное
собрание
сочинений
в 4 т. Т 1,
Москва,189. |
17.
Heidegger
M.
1950
Sein
und Zeit, Tübingen, 126 |
18.
Ницше Ф.
По
ту сторону
добра и зла,
Сочинения
в 2 т., Т. 2, Мысль,
Москва,
1900
361-362. |
19.
Ле
Бон Г.
Психология
народов и
масс,
Академический
проект, 238.
2011 |
20.
McDugall W.
1920
The group mind, Cambridge. |
21.
Trotter W.
1916
Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War,
London. |
22.
Динов
Т.
1986
Говорящее
молчание,
A PROPOS, c/o Jusautor, Sofia. |
23.
Ефимов
Б.
1976
Школьникам
о
карикатуре
и
карикатуристах,
Просвещение,
Москва. |
24.
Тюнин С.
2003
Золотая
фига в
кармане,
Афористика
и
карикатура,
ЭКСМО, |
25.
Златковский
М.
2002
Юмор
молодых.
Российский
институт
культурологии
МК РФ,
Москва. |
26.
Lim C. S.2003
Christian Education Utilizing cartoon and Animation,An
Applied
Research Project, Oral
Roberts University,39. |
Cartoons Mentioned |
Fig.1
М.
Zlatkovsky. "No captions",
Шутки
в
сторону!
Или
время
улыбнуться
всерьез,
Прогресс,
Moscow,
p.
8, 1990. |
Fig.
2 Ares. "No captions", Internet: click
here- tıklayın |
Fig.3.
P.
Kuczynski. "No captions", Internet: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=187772041640200&set=a.100573893693349.1073741828.100012222150502&type=3&theater,
2016. |
Fig.4.
R. Topor. "No captions", International Cartoon Magazine
Witty World, № 17, 35, 1994 |
Fig.
5. B.B. Ghaith. "No
captions", Internet: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154399324991810&set=a.10151227318136810.516054.594766809&type=3&theater,
2016. |
Fig.
6. C. Gomez. GRAFICA. ARTE/INTERNACIONAL, Ano25/61, Brasil,
2007-2008 |
Fig.
7. A.Sulaj. "No captions", Catalogue of 1.International
Bursa Cartoon Biennial, p. 39. 2007. |
Fig.
8. P. Klucik. "No
captions", International Cartoon Magazine, Witty World, №
19, p. 37, 1995. |
Fig.
9. J.-J. Sempe. "No
captions", Sauve Qui Peut, Denoel, p. 91, 1968. |
Fig.
10. J. Gluszek, "No captions", Catalogue of International
exhibition Satyrycon, Legnica, p.85, 2012. |
Fig.
11. M. Houmayoun, Catalogue of International exhibition Satyrycon,
Legnica, p.43, 2012. |
Fig.
12. M.
Zlatkovsky.
"No
captions",
Михаил
Златковский,
Галерея
мастеров
карикатуры,
Выпуск №5,
Гликон
Плюс, Санкт-Петербург,
p.
9, 2009. |
|