Rude Britannia: British Comic Art
9 June - 5 September 2010
Tate Britain, Admission charge
A joke is a very serious thing. (Winston Churchill)
The comic is about making a serious point, points we can’t make in other ways, says Martin Myrone, curator of Rude Britannia: British Comic Art, now open at Tate Britain. This exhibition explores the comic in British art from the seventeenth century to the present day. In British Comic Art (Room 1) the earlier satirical images are supported by copious texts, reminding us of how satire had its origins in language, word play and punning. The Oxford English Dictionary meaning of satire is the use of ridicule, irony, sarcasm, etc, to expose folly or vice or to lampoon an individual; a work or composition in prose or verse using satire; this branch of literature.Much British satire has its origins in the literature of Shakespeare, typically the Fool in the play, King Lear. The Fool was no fool, however, but a sensitive, intelligent man who followed his monarch into exile and helped alleviate his plight at every turn.
Thus it was with medieval jesters, exposing the shams and duplicitous dealings of their masters’ henchmen through rhymed wit and clowning around. The fool or jester played rather the same role that cartoonists and comedians do today, exposing the more fatuous tenets of the policies of our times. Verbal satire evolved into visual art in the early seventeenth century, interestingly in accord with the heyday of Shakespeare. Satirical artists drew upon traditions laid down by Italian and Dutch artists to create their images. Many of these early satires however, are anonymous, drawings not having the same status as the celebrated oil painting. Before you leave this area, do look at The Devil Upon Two Sticks by Hubert Francois Gravelot (1699 – 1773) and A Jesuit Displaid c. 1680, Anonymous, published by Arthur Tooker (active 1664 – 87).
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| Thomas Rowlandson
A French Dentist Shewing a Specimen of his Artificial Teeth and False Palates 1811 Courtesy of Andrew Edmunds |
By the eighteenth century, the most famous satirist of the day was William Hogarth. (1697-1764). The purpose of satire had expanded, also. In accord with the self-consciousness engendered by Enlightenment, satire was now directed at the middle class masses. This was facilitated by the burgeoning medium of print. On view at the exhibition is A Rake’s Progress, a series of eight prints by William Hogarth (1697 – 1764), the most famous satirist of his day. The series details the downfall of a young man after he comes into his inheritance. The prints of Hogarth refer, in the main, to the devices of the day; drinking, gambling and whoring, admonishing the punter to the same self-scrutiny as looking into a mirror. Disseminating these prints presupposed a degree of visual literacy among the print-consuming population. It was around this time that satire became less textual and based more on cultural references. An installation in this area, Social Satire & The Grotesque (Room 2), includes If not now, then when (2010) by John Isaacs. This installation is a larger-than-life human figure of indeterminate gender, rendered asexual by the distortion of conspicuous consumption. Also on display are blown-up cartoon strips from Viz magazine, a present-day form of Hogarthian satire.
From the personal we move to Politics (Room 3). In the eighteenth century, political satire flowed from the pen of James Gillray (1757-1815), an artist whose work influences the cartoonists of today. There was not a political event or personage who escaped his attention during his active years. Manic Ravings or Little Boney in a Strong Fit (1805) was his comment upon the Napoleonic threat to England. Potent in this section are the works of Gillray’s creative descendents; Steve Bell (b. 1965), Ralph Steadman (b. 1936), Gerald Scarfe (b. 1936) and many images from the Spitting Image team. If you can bear it, check out Margaret Thatcher ( 1989), a rubber, life-sized puppet of the woman.
The Worship of Bacchus (Room 5), area is devoted to a work of the same name by George Cruikshank (1792-1878), a monumental oil on canvas detailing what may happen to the most virtuous of Victorians who fail to check their consumption of the grape harvest. This work is so extraordinary that visitors may puzzle over whether it is a comment on Victorian life, or the meanderings of Cruikshank’s own mind - I certainly did. In typical “no sex please, we’re British” fashion, The Bawdy (Room 4) disarms this verboten subject. Somehow, we tolerate with humour that with which we can’t deal seriously. Nor is it a new phenomenon – the humour, I mean. Check out Cunnyseurs by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) against Mrs Mary Righteous explains her position to the Pope (1971) by Gerald Scarfe.
Enter The Absurd(Room 6), a territory that comic illustration absolutely lends itself to. Artists from various points along the time spectrum – Romen de Hooghe (1645-1708), Paul Sandby (1731-1809) - pre-empted Andre Breton’s surrealist manifesto: an unlikely juxtapositioning of everyday objects in an unexpected place. Interestingly, the two ultimate surrealist novels were written half a century before Breton penned these words and included are illustrations from one of them; Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, John Tenniel, 1820 – 1914.
On view are works by Jake and Dinos Chapman (b. 1966, b. 1962). Angus Fairhurst (1966 – 2008) and I’m Dead (2007), an installation of a taxidermy kitten by David Shrigley. In spite of the eye-popping morphings and mimetic installations, Martin Myrone stressed the undercurrent of melancholy that underpinned this final part of the exhibition. But further reading will spoil your fun. Rude Britannia is open until September 5. In addition to (well over) 200 exhibits there is a visitors’ reading room, and a facility where budding artists can create and post their own caricature – with the possibility of contributing to the display. As we were reminded at the outset of the exhibition, humour is a very serious business.
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