CARTOON TIME

The political cartoon is a venerable medium, usually illuminating a situation with at least a wry laugh, almost always exaggerating personal or national features, thus simplifying the underlying issues to such an extent that it becomes a caricature. Yet cartoons are vivid and memorable shortcuts for those wanting only a glimpse of the controversy. A quite separate class of cartoon raises a laugh at the more general follies of everyday life.

Gillray: The Plumb-Pudding in Danger

In the late 18^th century and early 19^th caricaturists like James Gillray (1756-1815) were merciless in lampooning George III, his government, or the dissipated Prince Regent. The famous cartoon above shows William Pitt carving out a maritime Empire for Britain while Napoleon tucks into Continental Europe. The Victorian weekly Punch set great store by its weekly political cartoon and John Tenniel (1820-1914), the admired illustrator of Alice in Wonderland, commented acidly on new Kaiser William II dismissing diplomatically brilliant Otto von Bismarck as his Chancellor in 1890.

Tenniel: Dropping the Pilot

As the Great War broke out, cartoonists had a field day with national clichés. In August 1914, F H Townsend’s Bravo Belgium!  had its effect on British public opinion and other Punch cartoonists like Bernard Partridge were tirelessly productive:

Bravo, Belgium by Townsend

Danse Macabre by Partridge

                     

World War II brought in another rich crop of cartoons in Britain, notably from David Low and Leslie Illingworth: Low had villainous Hitler and Stalin exchanging compliments as they partitioned a prostrate Poland.

David Low: Germany and the USSR partition Poland in 1939

But the day of the influential static political cartoon was passing. Punch itself folded in 1992 after a sharp decline from the 1950s. Cartoonists still drew and “Vicky” Weisz famously parodied MacMillan as Supermac in 1958 and later Ralph Steadman was savagely disobliging to Mrs Thatcher.

Vicky's Supermac

Steadman on Mrs Thatcher

Cartoons can cause deep offence as we saw in January with the horrendous murders by Muslim fanatics of the Charlie Hebdo team in Paris. Here in Greece, the German finance ministry has described as “vile” a cartoon run a few days ago by the obscure Leftist newspaper Avgi (circulation 1,800). It is headed The Negotiation Begins and depicts German Finance Minister Schaeuble in Nazi Army uniform saying We insist on the soap from your fat……………we are prepared to discuss the fertiliser from your ashes! This is certainly offensive, undiplomatic and grossly unfair but both Greece and Germany understand the over-arching Western principle of freedom of expression within the law.

Thankfully not all life is tied up in politics. Between the wars Heath Robinson delighted with his absurdly complicated machines. Later Carl Giles amused as his cartoon family coped with the issues of the day. Norman Thelwell concentrated on life with ponies, while Osbert Lancaster’s snobbish socialite Maudie Littlehampton and Marc Boxer’s metropolitan Stringalongs struggled to come to terms with the modern world:

Heath Robinson's Pancake Maker

Grandma Giles

               

Thelwell's ponies

Boxer's Ladies

 

 

The Littlehamptons

                                                                        

The cartoon has long ago taken wings with Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck followed by the other cherished characters like Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, The Flintstones, The Simpsons et al. They have moved on to the ever-expanding art-form of Animation, revolutionised by digital processes and able to reproduce monsters, ghouls, huge crowds and action heroes till the cows come home. But all that is another story.

Let me finish off by paying a tribute to the wonderfully entertaining comic strips of now and yesteryear – Oor Wullie and Desperate Dan from Dudley D Watkins in Dundee, Alex’s parodied City banker dreaming of his investment in a chain of lap-dancing clubs or Charles Schulz’s marvellous Peanuts strip with Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Laughter when we needed it most.

 

Oor Wullie

Desperate Dan

Charlie Brown and Snoopy

SMD

14.02.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE MAKES HER CASE

It has been a frantic fortnight for the new SYRIZA Greek government as its Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tour various European capitals to drum up support for a radical change in its Eurozone financing arrangements. It has also presented its programme at home and won a necessary vote of confidence in the Greek parliament. Many would have expected the Greeks to have been already flattened by the big battalions in Berlin and Brussels but to their credit the Greeks are still standing. They look like the new men, the new live-wires, amidst the tired old men of the old political elite.

Tsipras receives the Judas-kiss from Juncker

Schaeuble and Varoufakis disagree

Both Tsipras and Varoufakis have seen a succession of generally hostile “partners” – Schulz (all smiles in Athens, all complaints back home), Dijsselbloem (a highly uncomfortable bout with Varoufakis), Juncker (patronising Tsipras, kissing, holding hands), Schaeuble (failing even to agree to disagree with Varoufakis) and Draghi (conciliatory to Greece, then aggressively hostile to Greek banks over liquidity). Only from France’s Sapin did Varoufakis receive quiet support and in semi-detached Britain too, giving Osborne a cosy economics seminar.

Varoufakis is developing into a star turn. He is a highly intelligent academic economist, who explains his case with eloquence and logic. His informal garb, shaved head and motor-bike are rather off-putting for old fogies like me but I have no doubts about his intellectual credentials (read his provocative The Global Minotaur) and he exudes charisma – Christine Lagarde of the IMF seems smitten. He argues that Greece cannot pay its debts, that the Troika austerity programme has totally failed and that a new arrangement must be made. He has proposed a bond exchange involving some bonds linked to Greece’s economic growth and others undated and perpetual. He wants the Greek primary surplus target to be lowered from 3% to 1 ½%, so that there is more financial room to assist “humanitarian casualties” of recession; he wants to re-instate some sacked public employees and he wants a higher limit on Greece’s ceiling for issuing short-term bills. Many leading economists believe these proposals are sensible and should be broadly acceptable in financial terms.

Predictably, these proposals have been received with stony faces by the Eurozone leaders. Despite the obvious fact that the Troika austerity programme has been rejected by the Greek electorate, rigid Germany insists that it has been agreed by previous Greek governments and must in substance be implemented. Any change can only be presented as an amendment to the programme, and all other conditions must be accepted. If not, by 28^th February, the discussions end, all support for Greece is withdrawn and Greece will leave the Eurozone. Take it or leave it!

Angela Merkel, Greece's nightmare bank mnanager

The fear of the Eurozone leaders emanates from the concept of “moral hazard”. Allow the Greeks to wriggle out of prior commitments and they will be emulated by other weak states like Portugal, Italy and Spain. Germany and the Northern Europeans do not want the Eurozone to unravel – it suits them down to the ground as they generate huge surpluses from their trade within the zone, not to mention the lavish Brussels gravy-train for all the Eurocrats. If Southern Europe sees only endless austerity, that is their look-out, attributable to their feckless ways and inability to be “more German”

.

Tsipras has widespread public support in Greece and will not do a U-turn. So Grexit is a real possibility and there are only 2 weeks to avert this potentially catastrophic outcome. Personally I favour a friendly planned Grexit on the basis that a generous bond deal of sorts is done, Greece devalues to give it a chance of ultimate recovery and there is substantial help from the IMF, supported bi-laterally with help from the  US and UK. There are many dangers but long-term there may be a decent outcome. A hostile, forced exit will throw Greece into the arms of Russia and others keen to make mischief in the Eastern Mediterranean; the rather silly anti-German rhetoric, and Marxist calls for nationalisations in Greece will become ever more strident.  Can Europe save itself?  There is a tense 14 days left to cut a sensible deal!

SMD

12.02.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

I am not quite ready to polish my witty deathbed aphorism and I fancy many of the reported last words of the famous are apocryphal.  Most people shuffle off this mortal coil with a long sigh or a complaint about how fed-up they are as in Churchill’s: I’m bored by the whole thing, or Groucho Marx’s crack: This is no way to live. 19^th century US Presidents supposedly expressed their thanks to their devoted wives and undying faith in the Republic viz: President W.H. “Tippecanoe” Harrison: Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more - a likely story, fit only for post-mortem hagiographers. The British tried the same distortion with William Pitt the Younger whose last words were supposedly a patriotic: O my Country, how I love my Country! It seems what he actually said before expiring was: I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies, a much more human and cheering epitaph.

Food and drink feature in quite a few final utterances. US Frontiersman Kit Carson pleaded; I wish I had time for one more bowl of chili and John Maynard Keynes regretted: I should have drunk more Champagne. Humphrey Bogart was equally rueful; I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis while Lou Costello at least died happy: That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted!

Some people at the end cannot forget their settled routines. Thus circus proprietor PT Barnum still enquired: How were the receipts today at Madison Square Gardens? Or pedantic French grammarian Dominique Bouhours’ statement: I am about to – or I am going to – die: either expression is correct. Bing Crosby was told by his doctors only to play 9 holes but instead played 18: That was a great game of golf, fellers, before paying the final penalty at the 19th.

The venue of departure can provoke comment. I knew it, I knew it cried playwright Eugene O’Neill, Born in a hotel room and, goddam it, dying in a hotel room! Oscar Wilde found the decoration not to his taste: Either that wallpaper goes, or I do! Confused by the assembly of family members surrounding her bed, Nancy, Lady Astor asked: Am I dying, or is this my Birthday?

The great and the good often go out with a flourish. Mehr Licht whispered Goethe memorably. Plaudite, amici, commedia finita est (Applaud, friends, the comedy has ended) is attributed to Beethoven. Happy! exclaimed Raphael while Voltaire kept his sense of humour when priests urged him to renounce Satan: Now, now, my good men, this is no time for making enemies!

Yet I most enjoy the legendary last words of bluff and laconic George V, chivvied by his doctors to recuperate at his favoured seaside resort Bognor Regis: he croaked Bugger Bognor!

SMD

9.02.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

ROCOCO AND CHURRIGUERESQUE IN SPAIN

I have written 9 articles on the Rococo mainly centred on the flowing South German version and its wide influence in Central and Eastern Europe. Rococo was an evolution of Baroque and there are of course tremendous Baroque buildings too in France, Italy and Spain. Habsburg and then Bourbon Spain was not culturally close to the rest of Europe at the end of the 17th and in the early 18^th century and her transition from Baroque was in her own characteristic style and it is known by the names of Rococo, Late Baroque and Churrigueresque, all of which to some degree overlap. The exuberant Spanish style was monumental, elaborately decorative and instantly recognisable.

Facade of Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella

The first Spanish protagonist of this style was José Benito de Churriguera (1665-1725) who worked mainly in Madrid and Salamanca and his style absorbed some Moorish influences. Grand porticos and entrances are a common thread, typical examples being the imposing façade of the pilgrimage Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella and The Old Hospice in Madrid.

The Old Hospice, Madrid

   

The geometric asymetry of German Rococo is not so evident but there is twisting foliage and intricate, often stucco, decoration in abundance – some may say over-abundance. But the detail can be very elegant as in the entry hall to Our Lady of Solitude at Nules, Valencia.

Entry Hall floor at Our Lady of Solitude, Nules

                     

                                           

Elaborate Doorway in Valencia

A later fine Spanish Rococo architect was Ventura Rodríguez (1717-85) whose masterpiece was his remodelling of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar at Zaragoza, a many times rebuilt church, and a place of devout reverence for Spanish Catholics.

Our Lady of the Pillar, Zaragoza, by the Ebro. (from Williton)

Many other Spanish buildings thrill the visitor, the Cathedral of Murcia in South East Spain or The Palace of the Marquis of Dos Aguas in Valencia. In this period the reach of Spanish architecture was long, and was not confined to Iberia. The Spanish Netherlands, now mainly Belgium, were graced by many spectacular buildings like glorious St Michael, Louvain. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was also a Spanish fiefdom and at Lecce, right on the heel of Italy in Puglia stands an astonishing collection of buildings in so-called Lecce Baroque including the ravishing Santa Croce, mainly by Rococo master Giuseppe Zimbalo (1620-1710).  I last visited in 1993 and for the student of Rococo, Lecce is a wholly unexpected joy.

Santa Croce, Lecce

Even further afield, Spanish Latin America took its lead from its colonial master. Fine cathedrals were erected in Lima, Peru and in Mexico including the spectacular Cathedral of Zacatecas, in colonial times made wealthy by nearby silver mines. The Cathedral, built 1729-45, is in pink sandstone and is a prime example of Mexican Churrigueresque.

The Cathedral of Zacatecas, Mexico

In time, Spain lost her empire, her wealth and she was torn by continental and civil wars. Her architectural legacy survived and there was a revival of interest in Spanish colonial architecture in the US after a 1915 Exhibition. A relic of this is the playful pastiche Casa del Prado at Balboa Gardens, San Diego, CA, evoking much of the spirit of the flamboyant Spanish Rococo Style.

Casa del Prado, Balbao, San Diego

         

SMD

5.02.15. 

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015