Political Caricature Research Articles

Studying Political Caricatures from a Pragmatic Perspective

Studying Political Caricatures from a Pragmatic Perspective

Vanessa Schulman. Review of "Prints of a New Kind: Political Caricature in the United States, 1789–1828" by Allison M. Stagg.

Vanessa Schulman. Review of "Prints of a New Kind: Political Caricature in the United States, 1789–1828" by Allison M. Stagg.

The Power of Caricature, Caricatures of Power

Abstract This review article assesses three new books on the “Golden Age” of caricature in Britain and the United States: Tim Clayton’s James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire (2022), Amanda Lahikainen’s Money and Materiality in the Golden Age of Graphic Satire (2022), and Alison M. Stagg’s Prints of a New Kind: Political Caricature in the United States, 1789-1828 (2023). The article considers how satirical cartoons simultaneously educated and entertained the public about important issues, such as political corruption, nation building, and the perils of a credit economy based on paper money.

Jiang Qing, the Iconic Anti-icon: Visual Dissection of Female Political Power in Post-Mao People's Republic of China

This article examines how, in the years following the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Jiang Qing 江青 (1914–91) became a negative icon of a liberated woman in high office in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing transformed herself into a model female political leader. After her arrest in 1976, however, political caricatures systematically deconstructed her curated image by transforming her into the antithesis of the ideal powerful woman in a socialist society. Since a model liberated female politician was not yet available, Jiang Qing served as an “iconic anti-iconic” of women in politics under state socialism. Acknowledging the importance of Jiang Qing as a historical figure in Maoist China, this article analyzes how post–Cultural Revolution caricatures of her provide us with an understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s anxieties about women in power, and it raises questions about the absence of an iconic woman-leader in the PRC’ s political visual culture despite years of campaigning to achieve women’s liberation.

THE MEMOIRS OF ERAST NUDATOV AS A SOURCE OF SHEVCHENKO’S BIOGRAPHY OF RAIM PERIOD (1848—1849)

The paper aims to evaluate the reliability of Erast Nudatov’s memoirs who was an ensign of the fourth linear battalion of the Separate Orenburg Corps at the time of his acquaintance with Shevchenko. The memoirs were recorded by the Russian journalist and writer Dmitry Klemensov, whose real surname was Montvid. Due to the lack of other sources for reconstructing the conditions of the Aral Sea Expedition’s stay in Raim in 1848—1849, D. Klemensov’s publication repeatedly attracted close attention from researchers. However, many of them have been overly credulous toward the information it contains. Some of Klemensov’s assumptions had no factual basis and led to the spread of several legends in Shevchenko studies, primarily concerning references to Shevchenko’s artistic works (now unknown). Shevchenko did not draw any political caricatures, let alone “obscene pictures.” It seems that due to the limited memories of E. Nudatov, D. Klemensov had to largely speculate on a number of episodes, depicting Shevchenko as involved in various incidents occuring in the Raim fortress or those heard by the ensign during his service. The information provided by E. Nudatov has been cross-checked with documents, reliable memoirs, etc. The journalist’s treatment of his story turned out to be too fictionalized, not least because of the publisher’s financial interest. It is indicative that the editorial board of the “Kiievskaia Starina” journal, known for its commitment to preserving the poet’s memory, did not publish the proposed material. Perhaps this was due to doubts about its authenticity or disagreement about the terms of publication. In conclusion, it is advisable to only use an information from D. Klemensov’s material, confirmed by other sources. The rest of the stories, in particular those about Shevchenko’s antics, which are definitely too many for the three months of the exile’s and the ensign’s joint stay in Raim, should be used with great caution, bearing in mind the low reliability of these memoirs.

Low Art, ‘Skits’, and ‘Pot-boilers’?

Abstract This article re-evaluates Thomas Rowlandson, and his historic dismissal as a ‘hack caricaturist’ (Gatrell), by quantitatively analysing his political caricatures from 1780–1827, exploring their range, political affiliations, and satirical techniques. Qualitative analysis of selected prints provides context and showcases his effectiveness and distinctive style of attack. A unique focus is placed on Rowlandson's publishers and their potential influence. The article aims to reposition Rowlandson as a prominent caricaturist of the medium's ‘golden age’, highlighting the value in his satirical artistic output and challenging the assertion that his caricatures were ‘pot-boilers, which cannot bear artistic comparison with his watercolours’ (Bryant and Heneage, eds.).

L'ÉVOLUTION DU DISCOURS POLITIQUE À L'ÈRE DU NUMÉRIQUE : ANALYSER L’UTILISATION DE LA SATIRE POLITIQUE SUR LES PLATEFORMES NUMÉRIQUES AU MAROC

Without a shadow of a doubt, the rise of digital media has revolutionised the information process at multiple levels. Nowadays, internet users can comment, criticise, and shape news in just a few clicks. In this dynamic environment, political caricature i

Crisis y desequilibrio político durante el régimen fujimorista. El papel de la caricatura política. 1998-2000

This article examines the role of Peruvian political caricature during the crisis of the Fujimori administration (1998-2000). The research also develops an approach to the connections between caricature and power. This reading, which links macro and micro sociology, is made from the processes of political imbalance of the Fujimori regime, a process that marked, at the same time, a moment of inflection within the political sphere and that reached the caricature, both officious and opposition. Following a qualitative approach with an interpretative perspective, the analysis includes a contextual reading of some caricatures by important Peruvian graphic humorists. As a result, we find that the opposition caricature played a critical role, characterized by the development of its erosive capacity; the same did not happen with the officious caricature that leaned towards a more functional role to the hegemonic power.

The concept and the essence of political cartoon in the modern world

The paper is dedicated to the analysis of the theoretical component of political cartoon, its essence and concept. Attention is focused on the importance of political cartoons in modern political and legal reality with the rapid development of information systems and technologies. The author notes that the topic of political cartoons in the modern world is relevant and requires comprehensive research. A political cartoon is an important element of state, political and legal processes, since it acts as a vivid expression of public opinion regarding certain important situations in the global and intrastate field. The significance of a political caricature necessitates an in-depth approach to the analysis of the doctrinal foundations of the phenomenon under study, and therefore the paper represents the review of various approaches to understanding the concept and essence of a political caricature. In conclusion, the author notes that despite the widespread prevalence of political cartoons and the presence of a large number of studies on this topic, the problem of the place of political cartoons in the system of the humanities remains significant, as well as the lack of uniformity in the understanding of this phenomenon.

Drawing the lines: Studying the Common Man caricatures by R.K. Laxman to understand dominant political discourse around legitimate political contestations in postcolonial India

ABSTRACT The paper studies the Common Man political caricatures by R.K. Laxman, a staff cartoonist at the Times of India, to understand dominant political discourses in postcolonial India. It argues that constructs like the ‘common man’ and ‘vote bank’ through popular cultural discourse like caricatures have a critical impact on the political landscape of the country. While the former is associated with an urban English-educated middle class, the latter is used to denote the socially marginalised sections of the electorate voting en masse as a form of political assertion. The latter is perceived as an aberration in the modern secular democracy and its political voice is often delegitimised. Further, the former is associated with economic liberalisation, development and anti-corruption. The paper demonstrates how Laxman’s Common Man is a proponent and mascot of these in the popular imagination. Thereby indicating that the popular cultural archive has indeed had a visible impact on the political, economic and sociological cartography of the nation.

СООТНОШЕНИЕ ВЕРБАЛЬНОГО И ВИЗУАЛЬНОГО КОДОВ В ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ МЕТАФОРЕ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ МОНО- И ПОЛИМОДАЛЬНЫХ ТЕКСТОВ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИХ КАРИКАТУР)

The article depicts the interrelation between verbal and visual codes in a political metaphor from the perspective of linguosemiotics and cognitive linguistics exemplified by the integration of image and word in the representation of the meanings of political reality. The study is based on the mono- and polymodal texts of political caricatures. The research aims to describe metaphorical models of national leaders of two linguistic cultures – Great Britain (B. Johnson) and the USA (D. Trump). The schemes of interaction between verbal and nonverbal codes represented by substitution, comparison and hybridization, as well as their role in the formation of a metaphorical image of politician are revealed. The symbolic nature of polymodal texts of political caricatures is analyzed from the perspective of meaning formation by the interpretive consciousness, and the suggestive potential of political texts.

Turkish–Russian Relations and European Powers in Late Eighteenth–Early Nineteenth-Century British Political Caricature

Turkish–Russian Relations and European Powers in Late Eighteenth–Early Nineteenth-Century British Political Caricature

Representation of Ideology in Political Caricatures, from the Persian Constitutional Revolution to the Contemporary with a Sociological Approach [In Persian

Representation of Ideology in Political Caricatures, from the Persian Constitutional Revolution to the Contemporary with a Sociological Approach [In Persian

A Cognitive Semantic Analysis of Selected American Political Caricatures on Covid 19

Political caricatures are reflections of real situations or affairs that are summarized through drawings. Recently, they have become key elements in political communication since they manipulate different verbal and visual elements in shaping the political messages and attracting the recipient's attention. These different modes include verbal and visual elements. Accordingly, they provide a new framework to understand political discourse. This paper is an attempt to examine the efficiency of Langacker’s (2008-2017) construal dimension of prominence to the analysis of visual and verbal elements of political caricatures. It aims to prove that the prominence parameters of profiling and trajectory/ landmark alignment can account for the phenomenon of multiple construal triggered by visual and verbal modes, and the process of meaning construction in political caricatures. To achieve these aims, a sample of American political caricatures published on Covid 19 has been selected to be analyzed. Analysis of the selected data shows that the semantic content of the political cartoons resides on the visual and verbal elements employed in these caricatures. Both types of elements highly depend on Langacker’s two construal parameters of prominence, profiling and trajector/landmark, in constructing and conveying their intended messages. In addition, the way the conceptualizers construe the scenes participates greatly to decoding these messages.

Literary studies of political caricature: a quantitative analysis of publications indexed in the Scopus

The author reviews the past-to-present academic literature on cartoon studies (mainly editorial and political cartoons), that reflects the functional crisis of the cartoon associated with the development of the media space and new challenges. Some of the main trends, taxonomies, and approaches to date in political cartoon research are shown, and some of the weaknesses and strengths in the present field as well as aspects that are underdeveloped or have yet to be explored are highlighted. The articles in English published between 2017 and 2022 were reviewed to provide an understanding of the current state of the matter in various areas. The corpus was gathered by searching publications in international database Scopus. Each paper was classified based on its publication date, place of origin, subject of research, and frequency of citations. The quantitative approach employed enables the tracking of advancement in the field of cartoon studies over a given timeframe. Six distinct aspects pertinent to research in the field of political cartoons are suggested in a holistic approach, although this categorization is by no means all-inclusive and there is substantial overlap. The study of political cartoons during chosen period was more comprehensive and extensive than the study of editorial cartoons. Several proposals for further research in this field were put forward.

Визуальная метафора в сатирических поликодовых текстах интернет-коммуникации: на примере карикатур и демотиваторов об антироссийских санкциях

The aim of the study is to describe visual metaphors as means of establishing an evaluative and satirical attitude of an addressee to the phenomena of global policy. The article represents the visual metaphor conception, pays special attention to metaphors in political caricatures and demotivators, which allow openly and quite accurately expressing public, often critical opinion. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the functional and pragmatic description of metaphorical models used in political cartoons and demotivators. This article considers a visual metaphor as a means to highlight more vividly the events taking place both in the country and in the world. The results obtained showed that through visual metaphors, a critical attitude to ongoing events is represented, aimed at forming public consciousness in relation to the sanctions policy and its participants. The paper emphasizes some metaphorical representations of anti-Russian sanctions, which are compared with a boomerang, a bomb, etc. The article focuses on the analysis of the most productive metaphorical model “anti-Russian sanctions are a boomerang”.

Badiucao: Caricature as a Form of Protest against Chinese Policy

The object of the research is the political caricatures of the famous Chinese artist Badiucao (巴丢草). The authors used content analysis of a wide range of visual sources, primarily the artist's personal website, the first publications of caricatures on the Twitter, as well as comparative analysis to reveal the artistic features of the works. The main attention was paid to the biography of the artist as it defines his style and the way he depicts political events or politicians. The caricatures were analyzed in accordance to their main characteristics, formal stylistic qualities, iconographic features and thus their symbolic meaning were identified. It is important that there are a large number of publications abroad devoted to the artist and his works, while in China his art is subjected to strict censorship. There are almost no mentions of him on the chinese Internet. In Russia, the name of the cartoonist is practically unknown, which is the novelty of this study for both cultural studies and russian Sinology. The obvious conclusion of the research is that Badiucao is challenging the censorship and dictatorship of the PRC with his art. His caricatures are his main and strongest weapon in this confrontation. Using a wide range of artistic techniques and color palette, he talks about current events, not allowing to forget the sins of the past, demanding not only an apology for political mistakes, but a change in the attitude of the government towards the people of the two coasts – China and Taiwan.

Children-at-play Prints and the Affective Nature of Political Caricature in Edo in 1868

This article re-examines the expression of political satire in children-at-play prints issued in Edo in the spring and summer of 1868. The prints envisioned key events of the Boshin War through the lens of Edo’s popular culture. This article argues that the satirical meanings of these prints were not primarily grounded in an adversarial position towards the government but in the wish to affirm the values of townspeople’s culture at a time of political instability. This was achieved by projecting an affective gaze onto Edo children, their games, and the popular cultural practices these pertained to.

Female Ethno-National Personifications in the Austrian Political Caricature of the Period of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1878)

This paper is devoted to the gender aspect of ethno-national representations in political cartoons. The content of the study is formed by the materials of the political cartoon presented on the pages of the satirical magazines of Austria-Hungary during the Great Eastern (Balkan) crisis of the 1870 s. (Die Bombe, Der Floh, and Kikeriki). An attempt is made to systematize the feminine images of the Austrian political caricature during the Balkan crisis. Among them stand out: images of the Virgin Martyr (feminine passive-suffering personifications of the Balkan peoples and states along with the Ottoman Empire); feminine images of Austria (national representations of the country in the image of the Mother and heroized personifications of the Holy Roman Empire); images that are the personification of the theme of female deceit / “seduction” in politics and various variations of the harem theme in relation to the Ottoman Empire; feminine personifications of the infernal distortion of the Woman’s essence (war in the guise of the Gorgon Medusa, etc.). Such problems are considered as the formation of characteristic preferences of the Austrian political caricature in the distribution of variations of feminine images in relation to the image of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian empires and the Balkan peoples and states; ways of opposing feminine and masculine symbols of the countries participating in the main events of the Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878. The methodology of the research is based on “deciphering” the figurative and metaphorical way of constructing feminine ethno-national representations based on references to mythology and national history within the framework of imagology approaches, along with identifying the historical context of the international politics of the “great powers” in the Balkan region in the 1870s.

Boris Efimov’s Early Soviet Drawings and the Hazards of Political Caricature

Abstract The subject of this article is the evolution of Soviet political caricature as reflected in the work of artist Boris Efimov. The article focuses on the post-revolutionary period of Efimov’s career up to the eve of World War II, with particular attention to changes in his work following Stalin’s consolidation of dictatorial power by the early 1930s. While examining the nature of several key political caricatures by Efimov of the 1920s and 1930s, the article also considers the political context and circumstances surrounding Efimov’s work, especially the dramatic reversal of the official Communist Party attitude toward one of the Revolution’s principal leaders and heroes, Lev Trotsky. Based mainly on testimony in Efimov’s later memoirs, as well as two contemporaneous reviews of Efimov’s work by Trotsky and critic Viacheslav Polonsky, the article aims to demonstrate how political expediency compelled Efimov, who had received the support and patronage of these two influential figures, to alter both the content and style of his political caricatures for the purpose of attacking new imaginary enemies in Stalin’s Russia.