A Bastille Day Mystery

 

Today is Bastille Day, the official commemoration of the French Revolution (the one with Napoleon and Guillotines). I've seen quite a few peices of art dedicated to it. Most I've seen before, but the painting above is new to me. I find it quite striking and energetic so thought I would make it the centre piece for a short post marking the occasion with some public domain art inspired by it. 

However, I have ran into a bit of trouble, I can find no information about this painting, I've found hundreds of postings on blogs and social media but none of them have any information on the artist or the date of its creation. I tried image search and that led me to a page for an art seller called The English School, but, alas, while it gave me the option to buy a print or a shower curtain displaying this work if I wished it too contained no information on the original author. Poking around its storefront every other artwork it offers are well known public domain reproduction like Van Gogh's Sunflowers, so that points in the direction of this work not being an original creation by the seller and is also a period piece. 

This touches on an issue that's been bubbling for some time, stock sellers are increasingly taking over search engine algorithms, it is steadily getting harder and more time-consuming to find original material not covered in watermarks, or find a webpage with information on it beyond a shipping fee estimate and a coupon code for a subscription.  We're in danger of losing the most valuable platform for knowledge and artistic expression under layer upon layer of "side-hustlers" and corporate profit seeking. 

I've said before that I'm an amateur when it comes to artworks, but this looks to me like a 19th century work, maybe 1910s at the latest. I would like to know more about it, both so I can confirm its rights status and properly credit the artist and perhaps learn more about them. Please write in the comments if you have any further information. 

1895: A Garland for May day

 

Happy May Day

1917: His Best Customer

Cartoon produced in 1917 by Winsor McCay, cartoonist and pioneer animator.
 

1932: The Candidate

 

Searching through my disorganised archive I stumbled upon this political cartoon. I thought I'd lost it years ago. It was published in the April 1932 issue of L'en Dehors (In and Out). For me it is the best political cartoon in existence. It conveys its message clearly through imagery, panels and short dialogue, there's no need to overlabel it.

Sorry to say its cynical point of view has been backed up by world history. As to why so many politicians show two different sides before and after their election, well there's many reasons offered by scholars. The more cynical holds that they're all like Tartempion, shameless liars, other more generous or gullible if you'd like view political power as a form built through compromise, compare a party manifesto to its record in power and you find a string of unfulfilled promises.

However you think of it, remember Tartempion's promise of the Moon, next time you're asked for your vote.

1933: The Free Peoples of Europe!

 

Another art appreciation post. This one took a bit for  me to interpret its meaning. This is The Free Peoples of Europe! Published in January 1933 in the newspaper Der Wahre Jacob (The True Jacob) by Willibald Krain. 

The sketch style caught my attention and I was reasonably sure what the words said, but I had to look into the author and the publication to make sure. I am fairly confident that the intended meaning is a critique of the "Dicatatorship of Capital" concept. The women are the peoples of Europe all of whom are tied to factory chimneys, to me this represents how capitalism dominates people through work even if their nations are politically free.

Here's my reasoning.

The True Jacob was a satirical biweekly publication affiliated with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and was published from 1879 til February 1933, meaning this appeared in one of the last editions.

January 1933 was when Hitler became Chancellor and it wasn't long before the publications of enemy political organisations were banned.

Willibald Krain was born in 1886 and died in 1945. He spent most of his artistic career as a press cartoonist working for liberal and socialist publications. When the Nazis took control of Germany he found himself under suspicion and banned from working. 

In 1944 he found work again producing antisemitic cartoons for the satirical publication Kladderadatsch which at the time was a far right publication, ironic since it was founded in 1848 by a Jewish merchant family and had been a liberal paper before being sold to an industrialist after the First World War. It ceased publication in 1944 as Germany's deteriorating position throttled the economy.

Willibald Krain again out of work was conscripted into the Volkssturm (People's Storm) a militia made up of old men, young boys and war wounded. Krain did not see combat but was captured by the Soviet Army, during transport he was shot and died from his injury shortly after release.

July 1925, The 1st International Workers Olympiad in Frankfurt am Main

This is an example of the material he produced for the SPD. The Workers Olympiad was a series of left wing alternatives to Olymlpics which was seen as too nationalistic.

People in a hotel, a new novel by Vicki Baum

This is an advertisement for a novel by Vicki Baum. The novel was published in 1929 and released in English under the title Grand Hotel, which was optioned for a film in 1932.

1906: Couple Drinking

 

"We noticed you from across the bar, and we dig your vibe"

Found this quirky bit of artwork by Edward Hopper, at a glance it looks like an ordinary scene, but look closer and there's an eerily artificial vibe to it. For instance the gentleman's face looks a bit like the Guy Fawkes mask V in V for Vendetta wears, and the woman's eyes are covered in shadow by her hair, giving her a low-key hostile air. 

But I'm no art critic, I just know what I like. 

1803: Ottoman Empire map of Scotland

 

Les Demolisseurs (The Wreckers)

 

The Wreckers, a sketch from 1896 by the Anarchist artist Paul Signac (1863-1935) famous for his work in Neo-Impressionism and a pioneer of the Pointillism style. I'm quite the novice when it comes to art, as in painting and sketches, but I've been endeavouring to improve my knowledge. I discovered Paul Signac while reading Ruth Kinna's introduction to Anarchism, The Government of No-one. And found this image depicting two workers to be striking. They're demolishing a house and the worker in the foreground is raising his pick at the audience. 

If you'll forgive the cliché, I don't know art, but I'm eager to learn. And to me this image plays with and depicts the intertwined relations between creation and destruction. The Anarchist Revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin famously stated, "the passion for destruction is itself a creative act".  The Reaction in Germany (1842). Here we have two workers or "Wreckers" dismantling a building and in the process creating something new, exactly what remains to be seen, it could be the foundations for a new building or just remain as an open space. 

Dialectics can be tricky to simplify and explain, personally I think that phrase and now this image is the best summary of it in its crude thesis+anti-thesis=synthesis. Or in this case, destruction includes creation and thus leads to a new phenomenon.  

Like with prose and poetry, many of the classics are in the public domain, which has made them much more accessible to me. 

 I can't afford to go to many galleries, so the freedom to distribute and share is much valued and appreciated. I hope to improve my knowledge and experience throughout the year. 

 

Portrait of Paul Signac, created in 1890 by his friend and collaborator Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

Much ado about Tariffs

 A cartoon about tariffs from Puck magazine in 1908. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme sometimes. I remember learning about Tariff reforms in History class. In the 1900s, the British Empire was concerned over increased competition from other industrialised rivals and cheaper imports within the Imperial and domestic markets. One solution favoured by the Conservative party and some Liberal Imperialists* favoured a regime of tariffs on foreign goods.

Anonymous pro-Tariff Reform League image produced around 1911

 

The issue? Well aside from aiming at preserving national dominance and a literal Empire running there were very real dangers of mass starvation. 

Anti Tariff reform poster produced by the Liberal Party in 1905

 

Malnutrition was a major blight of the British population, with unimaginable levels of poverty. And this was with the cheap imported foods the poor could obtain. A price increase on these food stuffs would turn malnutrition into fatal starvation. I remember one statistic relating to the Second Boer War, malnutrition was so severe that in Manchester during one call up for volunteers the majority of men who answered had to be turned away on medical grounds, and three quarters of the men they did take were too weak to pass the bare minimum of official physical standards. The Liberals and the Labour Party eventually won the struggle over tariff reforms, a dispute that lead to a constitutional crisis and pushed the Liberals into an alliance with Labour and to shift away from laissez-faire economics to accept limited welfare provisions including the introduction of the first state pensions.

I like this pro-Tariff poster by the Tariff Reform League, published in 1909. It makes free trade sound great.

 

 

*This was how the split defined themselves, the rest of the Liberal Party and the young Labour Party were equally in favour of preserving the British Empire along with the Conservatives.

 

The Company Sign (1930s)

 

I present to you Jacobus Belsen's Das Firmenshild (The Company Sign), documenting Adolph Hitler's actions in Germany while campaigning for support.

The text on the sign is the official name of the Nazi Party Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei National Socialist German Worker's Party. The top reads "For the Proletarians [workers]" and the bottom part reads something like "For the well-to-do circles" who are represented by businessmen.

My German is Schlecht but that's the spirit of the text. Of course the point of the cartoon is the sign Hitler is holding, for each audience different parts of the name are emphasised. Belsen is skewering the Nazis for their opportunistic propaganda and lack of commitment. Jacobus Belsen was born in the Russian Empire, in the aftermath of the First World War he immigrated to Germany where he found work as an illustrator and cartoonist. He wasn't a fan of the Nazi party and left Germany for the United States of America, he died in 1937. 

A New Curated Public Domain Image Catalogue Goes Live

 

Chart of the Hand, by Dr Alesha Sivartha, published in 1898.

 

Good news everyone! The good people at the Public Domain Review, have released a brand-new project, a database of thousands of public domain images, in high quality and best of all it's curated by their team of researchers so you can trust their work and the information provided by them. 

I've been spending sometime looking through its tags and marvelling at the results. The Archive can be accessed directly here, and I will be adding it to my list of resources on the blog sidebar. In addition to being a cool resource, this has personally been a useful and much appreciated service. I'm a historian and one of the barriers I find to making historical material available is the monopolisation of historical photographs, sketches and paintings by a handful of massive stock footage companies who flood search engine results with previews of materials centuries old covered in watermarks offering to let you access a scene of peasants storming the Russian Army lines in Vienna in 1848 for a fee or annual subscription.

It's not the fees I object to, it's the paywalling of public information, art and history while they already have access to licensed material for revenue.  I know it costs money to run a service, the main reason this blog and its associated platforms are infrequently updated is because I can't afford to devout my full time to them. But there are ways to earn revenue while making commonly owned materials publicly available. 

The archive is an excellent example of how to do that. If you appreciate the time and effort the folks at the Review put into these projects, you can donate if you're in a financial position to do so. And if you see an image you really like and would like to display somewhere physical, then you can purchase a high quality print from them. Or you can download the image and print it yourself. The choice is yours, and nothing is being withheld for profit or reasons of control.

Perseus and the Head of Medusa, by Stuart Hall, published in 1824

 

Yippie Mickey

 

A satirical image produced by the Yippies! Youth International Party, a group on the radical fringes of the US New Left in the 60s-70s. The Yippies most famous member was Abbie Hoffman the author of Steal This Book! The Yippies were an eclectic bunch influenced by Anarchism and other anti-establishment ideas.

This gun toting Mickey Mouse is an example of the messaging and propaganda they circulated, though the Yippies were more well known for their street actions and stunts, including running a porcine called Pigasus for President. The image was used to promote calls for action and disruption of Disneyland in 1970, more details on that event can be found at libcom.org. 

Also, you may find this 1968 film produced by the Yippies informative.

Heartbreaking the Worst Company in the World (Allegedly) Just Made an Excellent Point

 

I'll say this for the anonymous artist who worked on this advertising material for the Grumman industrial concern, they did an excellent job with positioning and space.

When I share material older than 1925 I often get asked how it's in the public domain, in this case despite being published material there is no copyright notice present, which was mandated by the US copyright laws at the time.

I'm no fan of the arms industry, in fact over ten years ago I walked away from my plans to pursue a career within it after leaving University. So, its with great frustration that I have to concede that this poster from the 1970s is making an excellent point. The idea behind this buy F-14s advertisement is a concept known as the Security Dilemma, its the major factor for why most nations around the globe spend heavily on defence and offense capabilities, and also how large and well equipped militaries do not in fact lead to a peaceful world by themselves.

The simplest way to think of the Security Dilemma is in the type of scenario presented by this poster, 

1. Cruise Missiles exist and Nation A is building them
2. Nation B sees a potential threat in Nation As Missile capabilities
3. The threat is not deemed serious right now as relations between the two are overall healthy
4. But can the leadership of Nation B guarantee that will always be the case?
5. Nation B decides to look for a counter measure, Grumman offers the F-14
6. Nation A sees the spending on the F-14 program and its counter missile capabilities
7. Nation As leadership is concerned that its Defence policy is now compromised as it relied on its missile capabilities.
8. Nation A looks for ways to counter or by pass the F-14.
9. Nation B sees the expanded military investments of Nation A and becomes concerned, also starts to invest in further weapons programs.
10. Relations start to deteriorate and tensions continue to rise
11. War
     

There's more to international relations than this mechanistic cycle, but it is still an important part of the logic of militarisation. The lack of attention to the Security Dilemma is a major weakness of the pacifist and anti-militarist movements. Much of their argumentation relies on moral arguments, which is understandable, the moral implications of institutions and industries dedicated to the killing of over human beings are as obvious as they are horrific, but this overfocus constrains these movements and limits their potential audiences and strategies of resistance.

They're also heavily constrained by context, I remember the anti-war movements in the UK and Western Europe in the 2000s, they were large and popular since the types of conflicts the UK, France and NATO were involving themselves in were far away and often under the initiatives of their governments. These conflicts were widely seen as aggressive on "Our" part, or at least an overreaction. During the 2010s and especially after 2022 the atmosphere has radically changed and support for military action and spending is much more popular and resistance to it the more marginal. Why? Well now we're all reminded that the "West" is not the sole purveyor of armed strife and repression, their are other powers in the world just as willing and capable of resorting to mass destruction to get their way. Opposing BAE Systems was easy when the news was full of the destruction wrought on Baghdad, its much less so now that the news is full of Russian strikes on hospitals and schools and the ruin of Bakhmut. 

The Security Dilemma is also the main reason why the previously somewhat sucessful strategy of partial demilitarisation won't work in the long run. The organised anti-war movement was somewhat sucessful in getting specific types of weapons of destruction to be seen as taboo and were able to leverage the outrage and disgust over them to get some states to adopt laws and subscribe to treaties that would phase out parts of their stockpiles. Land Mines, Cluster munitions and multiple types of chemical and biological weapons and some Nuclear munitions were after years of blood, sweat and tears from millions of passionate campaigners starting to look like endangered species. But now much of that work may well be undone as recent conflicts demonstrate to all the powers that these horrific tools do have practical applications.

In Syria Assad's regime used chemical weapons to break an rebellion that may well have toppled him. He also heavily relied on aviatian, artillery and Iranian and Russian support but the case studies he ran using Chlorine shells will prove useful in certain circles. The war in Ukraine fought between two nations which have not outlawed Cluster munitions or land mines have demonstrated how militarily useful both can be in certain conflict scenarios. When the United States of America which also has not subscribed to the ban on Cluster munitions started supplying Ukraine with some of its stockpiles the leaders of the governments in Western Europe were grilled quite heavily about the issue for a week. They all just reiterated their official opposition to these weapons and then concluded they could do nothing about it.

The only way to solve the Security Dilemma is to take an approach at the root of the issue. Banning F-14s and their equivalents globally won't effect Cruise Missiles, getting Cruise Missiles scrapped won't touch Tanks or Mortars, nor stop the logic that drives businesses to operate in the arms markets, nor states from investing and supporting these companies and the wider market. If we ever genuinely want to see a world free of F-14s, SU-34s, Elbit produced Drones, AK-47s, Challenger 2s, Mirage Fighter Jets and Scud Missiles, we need to attack their support structure.

The military industrial complex and its ancestors have always been extremely resource intensive and required decades of support and investment to bare fruit. Without the capitalist market and the State system they will not be sustainable. If humanity truly is doomed by nature to a cycle of fratricidal violence (which is not what I believe but others apparently do) than by taking away his toys and the workshops that build those toys will prevent the worst excessises of that nature. Anti-Militarism without a Materialist strategy for resistance will be doomed to ultimate failure.
 

Mormonism in Utah - Cave of Despair (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1882)

 

I saw this while looking through an archive of old newspaper comics. The artist's point, a dim view of Mormonism, is clear, and the detailing makes modern political cartoons look amateurish. Though, it is interesting to see that the practice of over labelling is older than I thought.

Propaganda is a term that has been discredited by its usage in the 20th century by government's around the world, especially dictatorships, so it shouldn't be surprising that talented and experienced artists prefer to work in other less overtly political forms like illustrating character designs for gacha games, and spandex wearing Ubermensch. 

Also, a funny coincidence, the official name of Mormonism is the Latter Day Saint's (LDS) which is also the name of one of the most notorious purveyors of copyfraud (in my opinion) services on YouTube. Upload content on that platform and you'll eventually see them pop up in a e-mail about a restriction on your video.

Returning from Cuba 1898

 

Tornant de Cuba by Ricard Opisso a Catalan artist. Painted in 1898 this image depicts two veterans of the Spanish American war, tens of thousands of conscripts were discharged and returned to Spain at the Barcelona Quays which is seen in the background. Many of these men were wounded, and malaria sickness was common, the Spanish authorities essentially abandoned these men after Cuba and Philippines and Puerto Rico were lost to the United States. 

The treatment of these men contributed to the growing atmosphere of hostility to the Spanish military in Barcelona and the wider Catalan region. I've been told that this defeat sat heavily on Spanish consciousness and that a saying "Más se perdió en la guerra de Cuba" (more was lost in the Cuban war) which means could have been worse.

The conflict between the USA and Spain occurred during the infancy of film and Edison was keen to film recreations of the fighting, if you've seen a documentary on this conflict you've likely seen some of this footage, I certainly have.

Cuban revolutionaries occupy a house and fire on Spanish troops.

Notes on a Mickey Mouse Poster

 

The news that Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain was greeted with jubilation and much gnashing of teeth from a certain boardroom. During the celebrations, many shared some of the posters that Disney produced to advertise its first sound cartoon, including the one you see above. Looks like a cheery innocent little fellow doesn't he. If only we'd realised sooner. 

This poster has sparked a mini controversy, because it's not a 100% clear whether this poster was produced and released in 1928 or early 1929, and it is in colour and Mickey is wearing gloves. Why that matters? Well, it shouldn't actually matter at all, but many people who misunderstand property laws and trademarks have worked themselves up over it. The idea goes if this poster is from 1928 the same year of Steamboat Willie's release then it and its design of the Mouse is public domain and free to use, if not then we'll have to wait another year to January 2025.

The problem here is that the question is irrelevant, to qualify for copyright status in the United States of America before 1988, a work must be released with a valid copyright notice and be registered at the copyright office. Do you see a copyright notice? I honestly can't and this is the cleanest high resolution version I've found. So, while the year of release would be of historical interest, it's irrelevant to the subject of ownership.

 Under the 1909 Act, federal statutory copyright protection attached to original works only when those works were 1) published and 2) had a notice of copyright affixed. Thus, state copyright law governed protection for unpublished works, but published works, whether containing a notice of copyright or not, were governed exclusively by federal law. If no notice of copyright was affixed to a work and the work was "published" in a legal sense, the 1909 Act provided no copyright protection and the work became part of the public domain. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1909]

You might be wondering why Disney even in the early days when Disney was still just a man forgot to protect this piece of his IP. He probably didn't forget, he just didn't bother, lots of American advertising and promotional material was released without bothering to register for copyright. Remember, the point of copyright terms was to provide long-term ownership of material and its business potential, promotional materials by design have a short shelf life. The poster at the centre of this mini controversy was run at some point between 1928-29, and then never again. Disney and Iwerks made more Mickey Mouse cartoons and other shorts.

 Here's a playlist of other adverts that fell into the public domain for the same reason.

1920: The Soldier and the King

 

An old soldier runs alongside the King’s carriage at the Epsom Derby in 1920 hoping for some money, but all he gets is indifference. Found by Davenant

This photograph is a glimpse into the crisis of disabled and permanently injured servicemen in the aftermath of the First World War. In addition to millions killed outright, physical and mental injuries inflicted much suffering for years after. There was little relief in place for them, in the United Kingdom a private charity was established to raise funds to assist disabled servicemen into work. Which seems noble, but an open aim of the charity was to argue against state support systems. They made a film in 1918 to promote their work, called Broken in the Wars.

The film is an early example of a docudrama, using actors to portray people in conditions as close to reality as possible. Until the Labour MP shows up anyway. When I see the photo up top shared online, I see some incredulity over it, since the man in the photo is wearing a suit. I don't get the issue, it's clearly old and well-worn. It reminds me of the disgusting attitude directed against rough sleepers who have some money on their person. I guess we haven't changed as much as we'd like.

 

1920s: Argentine Anarchist magazine fragment

 

This sketched Malatesta image appeared in the Argentine anarchist magazine Vía Libre sometime during  the 1920s. It's an advertisement for a collection of his writings priced at $1.20, wonder what that would be in today's money? Argentina's Anarchist community was heavily tied to Italy as many of its pioneers were Italian immigrants and exiles.

Delegates from anarcho-syndicalist organizations at the founding Congress of the IWA, Berlin, 1922.

 

[CP italienne, de l’Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI) pour les victimes du fascime, photo montrant un groupe de congressistes, lors du congrès constitutif de la nouvelle AIT à Berlin en décembre 1922. De gauche à droite - en haut : Ritter, Hermann - Schuster - Borghi, Armando - Lindstam - Zelm - Dissel, Th.J.
au milieu : Orlando - Souchy, Augustin - Schapiro, Alexander - Rocker, Rudolf - Giovannitti, Arturo - Lansink, B.
en bas : Severin, Frans - d’Andrea Borghi, Virgilia - Abad de Santillán, Diego.
A noter la correspondance d’Armando Borghi adressée à Louis Bertoni.]

[Italian CP, of the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI) for the victims of fascism, photo showing a group of congressmen, during the founding congress of the new AIT in Berlin in December 1922. From left to right - topRitter, Hermann - Schuster - Borghi, Armando - Lindstam - Zelm - Dissel, Th.J. au milieu : Orlando - Souchy, Augustin - Schapiro, Alexander - Rocker, Rudolf - Giovannitti, Arturo - Lansink, B.en bas : Severin, Frans - d’Andrea Borghi, Virgilia - Abad de Santillán, Diego. Note the correspondence of Armando Borghi addressed to Louis Bertoni.]

Congrès International Synd. Rév. de Berlin

Un gruppo di Congressisti. - Un groupe des Congressistes.

au verso :

UNIONE SINDACALE ITALIANA

(Sezione dell’ Ass. Internazionale del Lavaratori)

Pro Vittime del Fascismo

Pour les Victimes du Fascisme

For the victims of Fascime

Für die Opfer der ital. Reaktion

Edizione e Serie di "SEMPRE" (N° 1 )

International Trade Union Congress. Rev. from Berlin

A group of Congressists. - A group of congressmen.

on the back side :

UNION SINDACALE ITALIANA

(Sezione dell’ Ass. Internazionale del Lavaratori)

Pro Vittime del Fascismo

For the Victims of Fascism

For the victims of Fascime

For die Opfer der ital. Response

Edition and Series of "SEMPRE" (No. 1)