Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Curator of Prints & Drawings
With Election Day tomorrow, who better to look at today than American political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who popularized the images of the Republic elephant, Democratic donkey, and Uncle Sam.
Nast’s family emigrated from the Alsace region in Germany when he was 6 years old. His first formal training in art was with German American painter Theodore Kaufmann in New York City, known for his monumental allegorical paintings. Six months later, Nast entered the National Academy of Design. His course of study was traditional: drawing from life or plaster casts and copying the works of the Old Masters in museums.
In mid-19th century America, it wasn’t uncommon for artists to get their start illustrating for newspapers and magazines whose circulations were beginning to explode. Acclaimed painter Winslow Homer is a prime example. American artists did not have the level of government and institutional support of the arts, like in France and England.
Founded in 1855 in New York City, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper was a 16-page weekly that boasted a circulation of 160,000 by 1860. Unlike newspapers, Leslie’s and Harper’s Weekly used wood engraved images to supplement writing. In 1856, Nast became an artist at Leslie’s at age 15. Henry Carter (aka Frank Leslie) had not intended to hire him, but the young Nash surprised the editor on a trial assignment.
In the summer of 1862 Nast became a regular contributor to Harper’s Weekly and remained there for twenty-five years, producing around 2,200 cartoons. The process of wood engraved illustration involved transferring the drawing by the artist to a boxwood block engraved by carvers. To expedite production, drawings were often divided amongst multiple wood engravers who would work on different blocks simultaneously. The sections were later combined, locked together, and printed.
Demand for newspaper illustrators increased in response to a public desiring the news of the American Civil War and a means to visualize it. Through four years of the war, Nast made 60 drawings for Harper’s Weekly. The earliest wood engraving by Nash in the FWMoA collection is The Army of the Potomac – Little Mac Making His Rounds (1862) set in a dramatic moonlit landscape full of dense foliage. Nash carefully rendered the figures and background like a highly finished painting. On horseback is Major General George Brinton McClellan who commanded the Army of the Potomac. Nicknamed “Young Napoleon,” or “Little Mac,” he was immensely popular with the men who served under his command.
Nash gradually replaced this painstakingly detailed depiction of forms with strong contour lines. He simplified his style, as well as composition and message, which articulated his reformist views. The artist often adopted allegorical personifications to help convey his theme. Caricature portraits appear in 1865, characterized by the distortion and exaggeration of distinctive features while retaining a semblance of the subject. Through these means, he deftly balanced humor and seriousness, evoking an emotional response from his audience.
Nast’s most famous series of cartoons, which cemented his reputation, was focused on commissioner of public works William M. Tweed, also known as Boss Tweed. His crooked circle included the mayor, city controller, and commissioner of parks. The group had influence on the city’s money and legislature, resulting in the embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars from the state.
Nast created over 200 scathing drawings of Tweed, always pointing towards his corruption, power, and lack of personal morality and honesty. In The “Brains” That achieved the Tammany Victory at the Rochester Democratic Convention Tweed’s entire head is a bag full of money. Nast popularized the dollar sign as a symbol for greed.
Tweed typically squelched criticism with bribes, but Nast refused. His wildly popular cartoons helped sway the public opinion against Tweed and the Democrats. This demonstrates how much power and influence Nast and the press wielded. Tweed was arrested in 1873 and convicted on 204 charges of fraud.
In Baltimore 1861-1872. “Let Us Clasp Hands over the Blood Chasm” Nast shifted his attention to national politics. Central was Horace Greeley, editor for the New York Tribune and surprising presidential nominee. Nast portrayed Greeley in a trench coat with a pamphlet peeking out of his coat pocket referencing the book he authored in 1871. Despite having admittedly limited knowledge on the subject, he proceeded to write What I Know of Farming. Nast delighted in repeatedly using Greeley’s words as a catchphrase to question Greeley’s expertise on a range of topics.
In Power of the Press: Press Witches (to Macbeth Uncle Sam), cloaked figures tend to a witch’s cauldron and cook up newspapers’ enchantments—allegations, frights, scandal, and sensations. Apparently, no one is safe from ridicule, not even the media. The title is accompanied by a line from a scene in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth involving three witches. Nast was a fan of the playwright, referencing 23 different plays in over 100 cartoons.
Nast relied on a trio of brewing witches in The Democratic Hell-Broth for the election of 1868 and Political Enchantment in 1884. This print’s composition shares a likeness with Honoré Daumier’s witch composition in Une Mauvaise Cuisine (1850). It would not be surprising if Nast was following the social satire of European artists Daumier, William Hogarth, and James Gillray. The other figures, some of which are animalistic, relate to the 1874 inflation bill passed by Congress that would increase the money supply, albeit unbacked by silver or gold. Beastly hybrid depictions were another comedic strategy.
Despite the sign held by the bill’s proponent, a wolf-like congressman Benjamin F. Butler, the bill was vetoed by President Ulysses S. Grant. The president heads the procession away from the cauldron. President Grant was guilty of showing favoritism towards his military friends from the war, perhaps the reason for Nast’s accusation of military despotism seen in the figure following him. Trailing behind is presidential appointee Thomas Murphy, who was charged with corruption in setting up a profiteering ring at the New York Custom House.
Nast developed an arsenal of pictorial symbols to convey ideas. Although not the originator of the national symbol, he popularized Uncle Sam, with a tall hat and long striped pants. In Lightning Speed of Honesty from Harper’s Weekly, Uncle Sam rides a snail, known for its slow speed. The artist relied on imagery that would be universally recognized, rather like visual shorthand, to help him communicate ideas more succinctly.
Nast possessed the ability to effectively embody and personify ideas, and gave us another lasting symbol after he left Harper’s Weekly. In 1889, the book Thomas Nast’s Christmas Drawings for the Human Race popularized the image of Santa Claus that we know today.
Want to explore these prints and more? Visit FMWoA Tuesday-Friday and stop by the Print & Drawing Study Center from 11am-3:30pm or make an appointment with Sachi!