Aesop, intermediality and graphic satire, c. 1740

Grandjouan, Kate (2022) Aesop, intermediality and graphic satire, c. 1740. In: Changing Satire: Transformations and Continuities in Europe, 1600–1830. Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 262-286. ISBN 9781526146113

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Abstract

This chapter considers political satire as a mode of visual representation. It focuses on a group of prints that were published in London between 1737 and 1741. When the prints were published, towards the end of Sir Robert Walpole’s premiership, they entered a dynamic market for locally produced and politically motivated imagery. Yet they stand out from contemporary production because they use animals to represent political arguments; in so doing, they offer a novel form of aesopian-inspired fable imagery. The prints are known collectively as The European Race and they were designed to critique Walpole’s attitude to foreign policy. The animals are used to stand in for European nations and to act as spokesmen for their respective interests. Their choice (the lion, fox, eagle, bear, boar, and elephant) reveal their derivation from the Aesopian fable. Aesopian beastiaries offered graphic satirists a practical way of visualizing the complexities of international politics, yet art historians have traditionally downplayed their significance. Typically, the animal is understood as an emblem i.e. as a flat device that is symbolic of a fixed character. The chapter shows how aesopian animality offered imaginative and interactive forms that enhanced the satirical characterization of the figures they were associated with. The animal politicians provide subtle and witty codifications for the shifting alliances and competitive tensions operating between different European nations. Furthermore, the prints were sponsored by the Tories and their ‘dream-vision’ animal iconographies seem to be mediating a contemporary mode of political writing that was being channelled through the Tory press. Overall, the prints offer fascinating perspectives on the ‘intermediality’ of British graphic satire in the mid-eighteenth century. They point to the flexibility of an established mode of political satire that had been popular in England since the late seventeenth century but which had circulated as unillustrated verses or pamphlets. Now though, with a lively public sphere stimulating the publication of cross-party graphic satire, satirical fables could make sense as satirical images and they could be successfully commodified by the print market. The appearance of the European Race during a period marked by the ascendancy of French power in Europe suggests that, rather than circulating as narrow national forms, aesopian related satire allowed local political tensions to be cast within an international frame of reference. Furthermore, the visual identity of the prints as refined and sophisticated graphic products that were designed by French and British artists, offer a further illustration of their cross-cultural connections. The chapter, therefore, explores intermediality and the satirical image, paying attention to ideas of movement across borders, across genres and across time.

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