Chapter 8 - A Conversation with Punch, Simplicissimus and the World of Art

Summary

In addition to Francisco Goya and Honoré Daumier, the artists of Mollå Nasreddin drew upon new forms of caricature seen in contemporary periodicals such as the British Punch, or The London Charivari (1841–1992), the German Simplicissimus (1896–1944) and the Russian revolutionary periodicals of the turn of the twentieth century, such as Leshii (Wood Goblin), Adskaia Pochta (Hellish Post), Plamia (Flame), Signaly (Signal) and Zritel (Spectator). Many of these publications were themselves influenced by Goya and Daumier as well as by the Critical Realist style of art, which emerged in the late nineteenth century.

Punch: a mouthpiece for British colonialism

The weekly Punch, or The London Charivari, which was modelled after its French counterpart, coined the term ‘cartoon’, meaning ‘humour or satire on a political subject’, for its full-page woodcut illustrations. The journal, which began under the editorship of Mark Lemon, was a big success, selling 6,000 copies of its first issue in 1841 (Price 1957: 43; Williams 1955). Punch became the most influential periodical of its kind in Britain, eventually reaching a circulation of 150,000, dominating Britain’s political satire for 150 years. The illustrated periodical, which was read in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, owed its existence to an extensive collaboration among its writers, illustrators, poets and printers, as well as its financial managers. In its first forty years alone, there were 150 illustrators contributing to the weekly magazine.

Punch began as a liberal publication and was initially critical of the Church of England and the monarchy. The magazine’s left-of-centre politics meant it upheld the concerns of the impoverished and of the working classes and supported the working-class Chartist movement of 1836–48 and its demands for parliamentary reform and universal male suffrage. However, it did not back republicanism. As the magazine’s circulation increased, so did its appeal to the upper classes of society. Fashion, the arts, social manners of the elite and family quarrels soon occupied many pages of Punch. On political issues, the weekly moved away from the Continent’s tradition of left-wing political satire and gradually came to represent the elite ‘British view on events’. Some even suspected the journal of controlling the ‘laws of England’ (Price 1957: 31–48).