An exhibit at the Museum of Romanticism discusses the keys to sulphurous and graphic nineteenth-century humor
Madrid. Even the most melancholic and attached to death, those romantics so fond of dueling or killing each other out of love or heartbreak, like Mariano José de Larra, had to laugh at both the Grim Reaper and their neighbor and power. This is evident from the entertaining exhibition ‘For a smile, one world’, which can be seen until 26 February in the National Museum of Romanticism and is subtitled ‘Caricature, satire and humor in Romanticism’. Many of the 42 pieces on display, some hilarious, are not on regular display due to conservation requirements and their extreme sensitivity to light.
The exhibition shows how macabre, sulphurous and hilarious our great-great-grandparents’ humor was. It examines its keys and its authors, “to show that the current codes that make us laugh are in keeping with and closer to those of the 19th century than it appears,” said its curator, Mónica Rodríguez Subirana.
In other words, although in a different way, we laugh almost as much today as we did two centuries ago, when without radio, cinema or television, the press, with all its modalities and graphic means, was the great vehicle for conveying humour. .
The exhibition saves among nineteenth-century series of publications as wild as ‘Los Borbones en pelota’, two of which are watercolors. Signed by the unknown SEM, it is the most wry and bizarre satirical collection of its time. Often pornographic, it was the epitome of criticism of Elizabeth II, a sovereign she depicts committing fornication in a group with her clique or practicing bestiality with a donkey. Some photos unthinkable today, in the era of political correctness.
There are loans from the National Library, such as the drawing ‘Lady Macbeth’ by Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer, and historical pieces from the Library of the Museum of Romanticism in very different techniques and formats, including satire, caricatures and illustrations.
The show’s core themes are the “political” use of cartoons and social criticism. The caricature was a political weapon used to ridicule monarchs and rulers who were portrayed in grotesque, humiliating or embarrassing situations. Although the satirical press suffered from strict censorship throughout the century, represented with scissors in one of the lithographs on display, the Glorious Revolution of 1868 sparked a cartoon fever, with the use of lithography and four-color printing in magazines such as ‘La Flaca’.
An illustration full of photographers offering portraits and another featuring an aging family on a train journey are examples of the caustic social criticism that mocked everything: new fashions, customs and customs, shows and exhibitions, technical and scientific progress… Despite the fact that in the political sphere women only seem to represent Elizabeth II or as allegories of Spain, in social criticism women are targeted by macho and misogynists ridiculed for their “trivial” interests and claims outside the home. .
Among many other derided stereotypes, romantics have been ridiculed for their looks, their attitudes and tastes, and for such things as bereavement or suicide for love. In turn, the romantics mocked the classics or ‘clasiquinos’ and their publications, such as the magazine ‘El Artista’, which shows several lithographs by Federico de Madrazo. Like him, other notable romantic artists cultivated satire and caricature: Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer, Francisco Lameyer or Leonardo Alenza, whose famous “Satires of Romantic Suicide” are in the show. The figure of Francisco Ortego stands out, recognized as the first graphic artist and one of the most renowned of the 19th century with several works in the exhibition.
The exhibition ends with the ‘collection of smiles’, prints with photos of the ‘carte de visite’ type with caricatures of famous people such as Ramón Mesonero Romanos and Eugenia de Montijo. And with other inventions and optical devices that resort to the comic strip, such as the grotesque scenes of the magic lantern slide screen, the forerunner of cinema.
Source: La Verdad
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