AN
INTRODUCTION CONTINUED
At that time, the most important part
of the magazine was the full-page satirical drawing,
known to staff as The Big Cut and entitled Mr Punch’s
pencillings. But in July 1843, The Big Cut was replaced
for a week by the magazine’s own entry for the
Parliamentary exhibition. In a series of drawings which
it ironically titled “cartoons”, Punch contrasted
the sumptuousness of the Parliamentary plans with the
miserable poverty of the starving population. With heavy
sarcasm, Punch declared that the government had “determined
that as they cannot afford to give hungry nakedness
the substance which it covets, at least it shall have
the shadow. The poor ask for bread, and the philanthropy
of the State accords – an exhibition”.
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| BATTLE
OF THE ALPHABET. |
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The artist John Leech’s full-page
wood engraving of ragged paupers puzzling at a gallery
of opulently-framed portraits was titled “Cartoon,
No.1: Substance and Shadow”. And it parodied beautifully
the designs submitted to the 1843 competition to decorate
Westminster.
As a result of this, the word “cartoon”
stuck and became associated with pictorial satire and
eventually with any humorous drawing. In the years that
followed Leech’s famous engraving, both political
and comic cartoons flourished in Punch, developed in
general by separate groups of artists. |
