Last Sunday, I felt terribly uninspired. I woke up bright and early, the sky was grey, the rain was banging against my window and I really felt like it was a lay-in day. I decided to fight that off by planing myself a date before lockdown would come and lock us all in. Looking at the list of museums available for students, I came across the Cartoon Museum which I hadn’t visited before. Before this visit, I didn’t consider myself a fan of British cartoons. With all due respect, I’ve always thought they were a bit dull, adopting the same sort of visual language and themes. This visit came to change my perception behind the history of British cartoon, specially in regards to Sequential Image.
“(…) THIS IS NOT BECAUSE THE JOKE HAS GONE STALE AND DISAPPEARED WITH AGE, SINCE IT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO AMUSE. THE CARTOON IS INTENDED TO DISTURB. THUS THE WORD ENTERED OUR LANGUAGE”
STEVE BELL
Located in Central London, the Cartoon Museum has re-opened its doors in July 2019. This registered charity dedicates it space to comic and cartoon art, conserving Britain’s comic art heritage.
As mentioned before, my exceptions from this visit weren’t too high: I imagined I would see some political art that you’d find in old newspapers from the 20th century which I’m personally not interested by. I was shocked to find our art from eighteen hundreds with such character! Predominant silhouettes, dynamic shapes, bold imagery, sharp brush strokes, geometric shapes-based character design, perception of depth, accentuation of body features to show different emotions and personalities.
Charles Henry Chapman, ‘A family affair: Bessie-‘ Spare him Billy!’ Billy- ‘I’ll s-s-spare!”
What I found particularly interesting in this illustration was the usage of geometrical shapes in the designing of the characters. Nowadays, studios such as Cartoon Network are very particular in the use of simplistic geometrical shapes in their characters for a slick, easy to read look and it’s interesting to see this method goes way back. An example of this is the show ‘The amazing World of Gumball’:
Virginie Kypriotis for Cartoon Network, 2017
https://www.theconceptartblog.com/2017/06/02/artes-de-virginie-kypriotis-para-the-amazing-world-of-gumball/
Unfortunately I didn’t capture the name of the artist.
Antonia Yeoman ‘Anton’, ‘It all started when I was a child’, 1960
The quality of line in this ink cartoon is just so graceful!
Leon Kuhn, ‘Torture? I see no torture’, 2005 Leon Kuhn, ‘Torture? I see no torture’, 2005
During this exhibition, I stumbled upon various controversial political/ religious posters. The way the artists use satire as a form of communication is extremely powerful.
Woodrow Phoenix, ‘Punched Out’, 2019
Unfortunately I didn’t capture the name of the artist.
This visit was an enriching experience. However, I do want to return since I couldn’t be inside the museum for too long due to Covid-19 restrictions. For my next visit, I’d love to sit down and have a read about each individual artist and their work.
My goal for these two years in London is to explore as many museums as possible and grow my knowledge on other cultures and art fields. Even though I’m taking up an Animation MA, I believe it’s important to be aware of what’s going on in other areas of study that can reconcile with Animation!