Word with a Past: Cartoon
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- Cartoon by Raphael ca. 1504
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- Cartoon by Louis Glackens. 1916
I had long been aware of two meanings of the word cartoon: one from the world of fine art and the other from popular culture. During a recent stroll through the history of political cartooning in the United States, I learned that the two meanings were linked at a very specific moment in time.
Originally the word cartoon, coming from the Italian cartone meaning a large sheet of heavy paper, referred to a full-scale preparatory drawing on paper done by an artist in preparation for a work of art, such as a fresco, painting, or tapestry. Art historians and museum curators still use the word with this way in some contexts. A term of art, as it were.[1]
What we think of as cartoons were called caricatures. That changed in July, 1843, when illustrator and satirical artist John Leech (1817-1864)[2] gave the word “cartoon” a new twist in the weekly British humor magazine Punch
In the depths of the “Hungry 40s,” the British government held a competition for a commission for murals to decorate the houses of Parliament, which had been damaged by fire. The government displayed the cartoons (in the original sense) that had been entered in the contest in a public exhibition with an entry fee of one shilling. Feeling that the money could be put to better use, Punch published a drawing by Leech of a ragged crowd of the poor, many of them children, gazing at a lavish display of paintings in a gallery reminiscent of the annual exhibit at the Royal Academy The drawing was titled “Cartoon No. 1–Substance and Shadow.” The accompanying editorial summed up the scene: “The poor ask for bread and the philanthropy of the State accords an exhibition.”
After Punch’s application of the term “cartoon” to this satirical drawing , the word began to be applied first to the type of satirical pictures the magazine was famous for and later to drawings that we would recognize as cartoons today [3]. In the twentieth century, the word expanded to include animation.
To quote Porky Pig, “th.., th.. that’s all folks!”
[1] Sorry. Sometimes I can’t resist
[2] Leed created some 30000 illustrations for Punch over the course of 20 years. (I’ll let you do the math.) Many of them addressed social problems, particularly those dealing with Britain’s poor. He also illustrated novels, including the first edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1844).
[3] I hate to resort to Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter’s definition of pornography –“I know it when I see it”–but writing a definition of cartoons as we know them proved to be surprisingly difficult. The dictionaries I usually consult didn’t do much better.
A Rabbit Hole Designed with History Nerds in Mind
John Tenniel’s White Rabbit from the original illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, from which the concept of going down the rabbit hole derives. In case you were wondering.
A few days ago, I found an interesting history sight in an unexpected place: Electric Speed, a newsletter from a writing expert named Jane Friedman[1]. In addition to sharing resources for writers and musing about all things writing, she often shares other resources that she has enjoyed. In this issue in addition to a source for a rum cake that she swears by, she offered a link to a dangerous site called Any Human Ever.
The idea is that history is a collection of stories, something I heartily agree with. Basically, you click through a series of buttons which create a random human from a random time and place. (You make no choices, other than to keep going.) It then gives you a snapshot of the statistical odds they faced—with links to sources for the information. And finally, it tells their story, complete with sources for the details, and a few images to bring their world to life.
My first draw was a girl named Li, born in 523 CE in the Yangzte River basin near Changsha, China, who died at the age of 11 from malnutrition. The site filled in what her family ate, what toys she payed with, what religion her family practiced, and what language they spoke. Fascinating.
I could spend a lot of time playing with this if I’m not careful!
[1] She also produces a paid newsletter called The Bottom Line, in which she analyzes trends n the writing business. I subscribed briefly, but it made me anxious.
Hippomania in Victorian England
Long before the baby pygmy hippo named Moo Deng was born in a zoo in Thailand and became an on-line sensation, another hippo captured the hearts of zoo-going visitors in Victorian London.
Obaysch (c. 1849-1878) was captured on an island in the White Nile, from which he took his name, when he was less than one year old and sent to London as part of an agreement between Abbas Pasha, the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, and Sir Charles Murray,[1] the British consul general, to exchange “exotic”[2] animals for greyhounds and deerhounds from Britain[3] . He was sent down the Nile to Cairo, accompanied by his keeper, an Egyptian named Hamet, and a herd of cows to provide him with milk—a detail that makes it clear he was indeed still a baby and for me underscores the cruelty of the arrangement, something that is often left out of accounts of his “stardom”.[4] After wintering in Cairo,[5] he traveled from Cairo to Southhampton on a P & O steamer that was outfitted with a special pool to accommodate its unusual passenger. Obaysch arrived at the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park in London on May 25, 1850; once there, he followed Hamet and a trail of dates into a cage with a heated pool.
Obaysch ca. 1855
Only those Londoners who had traveled to parts of the world where hippos were native would have seen a live hippo before Obaysch’s arrival. He was the first hippo in Europe since Roman times. (His predecessor was tormented in the amphitheater in Roman London—another kind of spectacle.) He was immediately a star attraction. On June 6, the Times carried a long account of his first experiences in the zoo. Other journals took up the story, including the comic journal Punch. Soon he was drawing up to 10,000 visitors each day, including Queen Victoria and a passel of her children[6] —doubling the number who had visited the Zoo the previous year. The press dubbed it “hippomania.”[7] His popularity led to an active trade in hippo memorabilia, including silver models of Obaysch—merch is not a new concept. He even was the inspiration for a dance tune, the “Hippopotamus Polka.”
Murray described Obaysch as being “as tame and playful as a Newfoundland puppy,” but in fact the hippo could be ferocious with humans. (And who could blame him?) On one occasion, he escaped from his enclosure. The zoo’s superintendent at the time arranged for a keeper that the hippo seemed to hate to act as bait. Once he had caught Obaysch’s attention, the keeper ran into the enclosure and then scrambled up a ladder to safety. The hippo ran after the keeper, and zoo employees slammed the gate behind him.
Abbas Pasha sent a second hippo to the zoo in 1854—a female named Adhela. Sixteen years later, the two produced a calf. It died two days later. A second calf, born in January of the following year, also died. A third baby hippo survived. She was named Guy Fawkes in honor of her birth on on November 5, 1872, Guy Fawkes Day.[8] She was the first captive-bred hippo to be reared by its mother Like her parents, she was wildly popular with zoo goers until her death in 1908.
Adhela and Guy Fawkes
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If you are interested in learning more about Obaysch and how he fits into the larger history of animals in zoos and the natural history of hippopotumi in the wild, John Simons’s Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London (2019) got good reviews when it came out.
If you want to learn even more, the ever fascinating Futility Closet offers a long list of related readings as an addendum to its podcast episode on Obaysch: https://www.futilitycloset.com/2021/07/26/podcast-episode-352-a-victorian-hippopotamus/
[1] Sir Charles became known as “ Hippopotamus Murray” for his role in the exchange, the main thing for which he is remembered despite a long and productive diplomatic career.
[2] As I mentioned in a recent blog post, exotic is is problematic term. I see a newsletter topic in my future.
[3] Ironic since greyhounds, or at least greyhound-like dogs, appear to have originated in the Middle East.
[4] In case it is not clear, I have mixed feelings bout zoos.
[5] Where he is said to have caused a milk shortage.
[6] The Queen compared his swimming to that of a porpoise—which seems really odd. Not that I have seen a porpoise swim in real life.
[7] A reporter may have thought he coined a clever new phrase, but the term dates from the late-eighteenth century. It referred to a passionate enthusiasm for horses and all things equestrian, and continues to be used occasionally with this meaning. The two-dollar word version of being horse mad.
[8] A British holiday commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1695, one of whom was named Guy Fawkes.