know where the modern-day meaning for the word cartoon came from?punch.photoshelter/about/ It was Punch [magazine] which invented the cartoon as we know it today. One momentous day, very early in its life, Punch made a grim joke which accidentally changed the English language by giving a new meaning to an old word. The butt of the joke was an exhibition intended to help in the selection of new paintings and murals for the Houses of Parliament, then being rebuilt after the disastrous fire of 1834. Artists made their submissions in the form of cartoons – the original meaning of the word was a preliminary drawing for a work of art; a painting, a fresco, a tapestry. At the time, the most important part of the magazine was a full-page satirical drawing, known as The Big Cut, entitled Mr Punch’s Pencillings. But in July 1843, The Big Cut was replaced for a week by the magazine’s own entry for the Parliamentary exhibition. In a series of drawings which it ironically titled “cartoons”, Punch contrasted the sumptuousness of the Parliamentary plans with the miserable poverty of the starving population. With heavy sarcasm, Punch declared that the government had “determined that as they cannot afford to give hungry nakedness the substance which it covets, at least it shall have the shadow. The poor ask for bread, and the philanthropy of the State accords – an exhibition”. The artist John Leech’s full-page wood engraving of ragged paupers puzzling at a gallery of opulently-framed portraits was titled “Cartoon, No.1: Substance and Shadow”. And it parodied beautifully the designs submitted to the 1843 competition to decorate Westminster. As a result the word “cartoon” stuck and became associated with pictorial satire and eventually with any humorous drawing. In the years that followed Leech’s famous engraving, both political and comic cartoons flourished in Punch, developed in general by separate groups of artists.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:30:29 +0000
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