A.7 Graphic Satire across the Americas in the Nineteenth Century

A.7 La satire graphique à travers les Amériques : un panorama du XIXe siècle

Wed Oct 20 / mer 20 oct / 9:30 – 11:00 PDT

chairs / présidentes /

Dominic Hardy, Université du Québec à Montréal
Aline Dell'Orto, CHCSC (UVSQ – France)

Why — and how — did graphic satire come to be so prevalent in the Americas across the nineteenth century? In the continents' diverse societies, the circulation and consumption of satiric images are attested by a growing body of graduate studies, independent research and work in universities and museums. This panel welcomes papers on (without being limited to): sites (public and private) of graphic satire's visibility; the gendering of satiric practices; linguistic affiliation; transamerican transfers (artists/cartoonists travelling, quoting each other, appropriations, collaborations); economics of publication and circulation; media (print, drawing, collage, scrapbook, photography, painting, sculpture, intermedial practices); relationships to the staging of power (colonial, post-colonial, federal, provincial, state, municipal) articulating indigenous, diasporic and racialized and settler identities.

Dominic Hardy is Professeur, histoire et historiographie de l'art du Québec/Canada avant 1900 in the Département d'histoire de l'art at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He established the research environment Caricature et satire graphique à Montréal (CASGRAM) at UQAM in 2009. In 2013–15, the group's work led to the presentation of five conferences that examine the relationships between art history and studies in visual satire, and three co-edited publications: Quand la caricature sort du journal. Baptiste Ladébauche (1878–1957) (with Micheline Cambron, Fides 2015), Sketches from an Unquiet Country. Graphic Satire in Canada 1840–1940 (with Annie Gérin and Lora Senechal Carney, MQUP 2018), and L'Image railleuse. La satire visuelle du 18e siècle à nos jours (with Laurent Baridon and Frédérique Desbuissons, INHA 2019). The group maintains friendly links to the Association of Canadian Cartoonists and the Équipe Internationale de Recherche sur l'Image Satirique. The CASGRAM environment is now jointly piloted with Ersy Contogouris at the Université de Montréal.

Aline dell'Orto est docteure en Histoire à l'EHESS-Paris et à la PUC-Rio de Janeiro, avec une thèse intitulée Etre caricaturiste. Le métier de dessinateur de presse à Rio de Janeiro (1844–1888). Après un Master traitant des représentations des personnes noires dans la caricature en France, au Brésil, au Portugal et en Angleterre pendant le XIXe siècle, Aline dell'Orto s'est penchée, pendant son doctorat, sur la constitution d'un métier de caricaturiste à Rio de Janeiro à la même époque. Les mécanismes de construction d'une identité professionnelle en lien avec l'horizon d'attentes de la société impériale brésilienne ont été au cœur de ses recherches. Elle a enseigné la théorie de l'Histoire à l'Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris) et est l'auteure avec Laura Nery de « Diables et bazars : entre la place et la revue. Presse satirique brésilienne dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle », Ridiculosa, n. 24, 2017.

A.7.1 Racism and Resistance: Analysis of Black Characters at the 19th Century Brazilian Illustrated Press

Marcelo Balaban, University of Brasilia

In one of his best-known books, published in 1883, Brazilian abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco stated that there were no racial conflicts in Brazil. This argument was largely widespread and incorporated by part of the historiography of the early 20th century in Brazil. However, racial conflicts were a central element of the 19th-century Brazilian slave society, maintained strong until our time. In legal documents, racial antagonisms did not always emerge explicitly, which was a peculiar characteristic of Brazilian racism at that time. Caricatures of black characters published in the illustrated press, in turn, are an exception. Through them, it is possible to analyze various forms of social inequalities production related to racial issues. Moreover, those drawings were one of the ways by which racism was produced and reproduced. On the other hand, the prints, when properly surveyed, show the other side of the coin: the black resistance. Through various methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative, and the use of different sources, this presentation aims to explore the double characteristic of caricatures of black characters. If the prints revealed the views, concepts and prejudices of their authors in the many standardizations characteristic of this form of graphic art, there were gaps in these elements that allow us to understand the action and resistance of real African-Brazilians, whether enslaved or citizens.

Marcelo Balaban is a professor of Brazilian History at the University of Brasilia, Brazil. Author, among others books, of Poet of Crayon: Satire and Politics on Angelo Agostini's Trajectory in Imperial Brazil (1864–1888) | Poeta do Lápis: sátira e política na trajetória de Angelo Agostini no Brasil imperial (1864–1888) (original title in Portuguesse) and Markers of the Difference: Race and Racism in Brazilian History | Marcadores da Diferença: raça e racismo na história do Brasil (original title in Portuguese), edited with Gabriela Sampaio and Ivana Lima. His current research is about images of Black characters — slaves, free and freed — in Rio de Janeiro's Illustrated Press during the second half of the nineteenth century.

A.7.2 Caricature in Cuba and the Representation of National Identity: The Work of Ricardo de la Torriente

Ramses Morales Izquierdo, Independent Artist

As Cuba became a Republic in 1900, its graphic humour had been recognized as a significant vector of the nation's culture throughout the Spanish colonial period. Indeed, graphic satire journals emerged in Cuba as early as the 1830s, with the cities of Cienfuegos and Trinidad vying for the site of first publication. This paper examines, from a contemporary practitioner's point of view, the work of the graphic artist Ricardo de la Torriente (Matanzas 1869–1934 Havana) through a focus on his everyman character: the peasant Liborio, who came to symbolize the Cuban people in their constant conversation with Uncle Sam. The fact that an academic artist such as Torriente would take up the art of press cartoons bears witness to the extensive public appreciation given to graphic satire in Cuba to this day; this visual record is, in a way, another form of writing the nation's history. With all the social problems that the island continues to face, it is a very useful instrument to decipher the labyrinth of ideas that Cuban society is today.

Ramses Morales Izquierdo graduated in 1996 in graphic arts from the Art Academy of Trinidad. His work as a graphic artist drawing political cartoons and illustrations is widely disseminated in the international press. From 2000 to 2012, he taught cartooning and illustration in the Art Academy of Trinidad, while maintaining a career (1999–2016) as an illustrator for the Office of Conservation in Trinidad, creating texts and images for comic books that promoted Trinidad as Unesco World Heritage site. Since February 2016, he has lived in Switzerland, where he works as a freelance creator.

A.7.3 A Particular View and a Unique Outline of the History of Chile, through Luis Fernando Rojas's Lithographs LFR: Visual Chronicler of Chile (1875–1942)

Carola Ureta Marín, Royal College of Art

This presentation analyzes a selection of the work of Luis Fernando Rojas, possibly the most important illustrator in Chile between 1875–1942. Rojas described not only what was happening in Chile, but also international events. At the time, photography was only used for portrait or landscape work and was rarely applied to everyday life and less to critique political events. For this reason, illustration becomes a powerful communication tool and also for building a national historical archive. The caricature and the political humour as a genre were characteristic of Rojas's vast work. Through his drawings, ironically caricatured moments in the history of Chile, politicians of the time, and was able to also depict the opinions and visions of the people (imaginary and national identity). His characters with elongated limbs and disproportionate faces reflected the national problems of the time. Rojas was an active social critic, disseminating different points of view through drawing by using different signatures. Through his lithographs, we are able to recognize trends of the time, social hierarchies, furniture, the incipient advertising in the country, national symbols, popular consumer brand products, just to name a few. In fact, Rojas was one of the first to enlighten the country's middle class. The influence of Spanish Modernism and French Art Nouveau in the graphic work of Luis Fernando Rojas are key elements as a colonizing seal of Europe in America. The incessant work of this Chilean for drawing everything that happened in front of his eyes, nowadays makes up a fundamental historiographic material for the history of Chile. It seems paradoxical that the father of the cutting-edge technique of lithography in Chile would see himself directly affected by technological innovation and the modernization of publishing, a process that would eventually leave him obsolete and forgotten.

Designer, Master in Cultural Management and Ma Visual Communication specialized in editorial projects and graphic design linked to cultural development, Carola Ureta Marín conducts research in design, contributing to the development of reflections on the patrimonial rescue of Chilean Graphics, Memory Archives and Human Rights. She has worked on the digital platform Diseño Nacional, and she is the director of the current project The City as Text. Her publication co-authored with Pedro Álvarez, Luis Fernando Rojas: Obra Gráfica 1875–1942, was awarded as Best Edition 2015 for being the most outstanding work. She has been part of International Congresses on History and Design Studies: Buenos Aires (2015); Taipei (2016); Medellin (2018); Barcelona (2018); and Guayaquil (2020). Currently, she is also part of the curatorial team of the London Design Biennale 2021, representing the Chilean pavilion entitled Tectonic Resonances from the South: From User-Centered Design to Planet Oriented Design.