April 2, 2025
Monsters and Machines: Caricature, Visual Satire, and the Twentieth Century Bestiary
Thomas Kennan
Princeton University Librarian for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and
Deborah Schlein
Princeton University Librarian for Near Eastern Studies
Monsters and Machines: Caricature, Visual Satire, and the Twentieth Century Bestiary
Thomas Kennan
Princeton University Librarian for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and
Deborah Schlein
Princeton University Librarian for Near Eastern Studies
Thomas Kennan, Deborah Schlein, and George Bustin, introducer
Minutes of the 25th Meeting of the 83rd Year
President George Bustin called the meeting to order. Frances Slade led the Invocation. The minutes of the previous meeting, prepared by Stephen Silverman, were read by Sandy Shapiro. Beverly Glockler, was guest of her husband, Tony Glockler. There were 100 in attendance.
George Bustin introduced the speakers, Dr. Thomas Keenan and Dr. Deborah Schlein, two curators of a recent Princeton University Firestone Library exhibit: MONSTERS AND MACHINES: Caricature, Visual Satire and the Twentieth Century Bestiary.
Humor and art have been used to mock the powerful for centuries. While the exhibit focused principally on the period between the beginning of WW I and the end of the Cold War, Dr. Keenan introduced a precursor from Dante’s Divine Comedy, where a human/beast hybrid was portrayed as a Florentine creature of fraud and deceitfulness.
The exhibit, divided into multiple sections, generally featured the use of grotesque animals, with some exceptions, to dehumanize political and ideological adversaries. This visual satire was intended to clearly divorce subjects from any form of human dignity. As Keenan indicated, “who was in and who was out” at the time. Because the art was essentially ephemeral, it was often difficult for the curators to fully identify exactly whom any individual piece targeted.
They characterized the era as one of an “explosion of print.” Media included posters, postcards, flyers, trading cards, and eventually magazines and newspapers.
Titles of the exhibit sections were Titans and Tyrants, Dogs of War, Fascist Pigs, Many Legged Tarantulas and Terrifying Human Technology.
The speakers presented illustrations from Italy, Turkey, Persia (now Iran), Egypt, France, Georgia, Spain, China, and Germany. The assembled collection showed many clear targets, including Uncle Sam, John Bull, Hitler, Eisenhower, Turkish oligarchs, War, Colonialism, Communism, Fascism, and many other individuals who necessarily remained nameless because of the Satire’s ephemeral character.
Representative examples included one from Italy during WW I, circa 1913, featuring the figure of Gerion, a creature with a gentle face atop a dragon’s tail with a pile of bones at his feet, depicting Germany’s perceived nature of deception which hid violence and wanton destruction.
Another from Turkey in 1941 showed a giant soldier with a sword dripping blood, a belt with weapons hanging from it, and a small skeletal figure at his feet, labeled 1914, with the caption, “I used to think of myself as something great,” comparing WW I, the former Great War, with the much bigger WW II.
In 1952, during the Korean War, an artist drew a representation of Uncle Sam as a Breakfast Soup Cook with piles of bones at his feet and Eisenhower as a dog, nearby. The caption read, “Bad is gone and worse ensues.” The Korean War went on until 1953.
From China in the 1950s the curators found a depiction of a pig in a top hat, symbolizing colonialists and industrialists consuming things that do not belong to them.
And yet another from the Soviet Union in 1987, depicted the U.S. as a giant spider wearing a cowboy hat (President Reagan?) with six legs, each one representing a missile, characterizing imperialist expansion.
In China in 1950, a depiction of a half-woman, half snake, dressed in Old Glory, representing the Voice of America, was shown spreading propaganda and false narratives.
The last section represented a different kind of category: the rise of military technology with its accompanying militarization, magnifying humanity’s destructive impulses.
Of course, the speakers both reminded us, satirical artwork promotes a specific view of humanity and excludes other contemporary, specific actors from that vision but it is always a powerful tool.
In response to a question about contemporary satirical art, Dr. Schlein suggested that, while the art form continues, healthy as ever, the medium has changed. With social media and the Internet, satirists are posting their jibes online in the form of memes. But they are definitely still doing their work!
The exhibit can be seen at following website:
https://dpul.princeton.edu/monsters_and_machines
Respectfully submitted,
Julie Denny
George Bustin introduced the speakers, Dr. Thomas Keenan and Dr. Deborah Schlein, two curators of a recent Princeton University Firestone Library exhibit: MONSTERS AND MACHINES: Caricature, Visual Satire and the Twentieth Century Bestiary.
Humor and art have been used to mock the powerful for centuries. While the exhibit focused principally on the period between the beginning of WW I and the end of the Cold War, Dr. Keenan introduced a precursor from Dante’s Divine Comedy, where a human/beast hybrid was portrayed as a Florentine creature of fraud and deceitfulness.
The exhibit, divided into multiple sections, generally featured the use of grotesque animals, with some exceptions, to dehumanize political and ideological adversaries. This visual satire was intended to clearly divorce subjects from any form of human dignity. As Keenan indicated, “who was in and who was out” at the time. Because the art was essentially ephemeral, it was often difficult for the curators to fully identify exactly whom any individual piece targeted.
They characterized the era as one of an “explosion of print.” Media included posters, postcards, flyers, trading cards, and eventually magazines and newspapers.
Titles of the exhibit sections were Titans and Tyrants, Dogs of War, Fascist Pigs, Many Legged Tarantulas and Terrifying Human Technology.
The speakers presented illustrations from Italy, Turkey, Persia (now Iran), Egypt, France, Georgia, Spain, China, and Germany. The assembled collection showed many clear targets, including Uncle Sam, John Bull, Hitler, Eisenhower, Turkish oligarchs, War, Colonialism, Communism, Fascism, and many other individuals who necessarily remained nameless because of the Satire’s ephemeral character.
Representative examples included one from Italy during WW I, circa 1913, featuring the figure of Gerion, a creature with a gentle face atop a dragon’s tail with a pile of bones at his feet, depicting Germany’s perceived nature of deception which hid violence and wanton destruction.
Another from Turkey in 1941 showed a giant soldier with a sword dripping blood, a belt with weapons hanging from it, and a small skeletal figure at his feet, labeled 1914, with the caption, “I used to think of myself as something great,” comparing WW I, the former Great War, with the much bigger WW II.
In 1952, during the Korean War, an artist drew a representation of Uncle Sam as a Breakfast Soup Cook with piles of bones at his feet and Eisenhower as a dog, nearby. The caption read, “Bad is gone and worse ensues.” The Korean War went on until 1953.
From China in the 1950s the curators found a depiction of a pig in a top hat, symbolizing colonialists and industrialists consuming things that do not belong to them.
And yet another from the Soviet Union in 1987, depicted the U.S. as a giant spider wearing a cowboy hat (President Reagan?) with six legs, each one representing a missile, characterizing imperialist expansion.
In China in 1950, a depiction of a half-woman, half snake, dressed in Old Glory, representing the Voice of America, was shown spreading propaganda and false narratives.
The last section represented a different kind of category: the rise of military technology with its accompanying militarization, magnifying humanity’s destructive impulses.
Of course, the speakers both reminded us, satirical artwork promotes a specific view of humanity and excludes other contemporary, specific actors from that vision but it is always a powerful tool.
In response to a question about contemporary satirical art, Dr. Schlein suggested that, while the art form continues, healthy as ever, the medium has changed. With social media and the Internet, satirists are posting their jibes online in the form of memes. But they are definitely still doing their work!
The exhibit can be seen at following website:
https://dpul.princeton.edu/monsters_and_machines
Respectfully submitted,
Julie Denny