Walter Crane (1845-1915), ‘A Garland for May Day’,  1895Source“The 1895 cartoon also tel

Walter Crane (1845-1915), ‘A Garland for May Day’,  1895Source“The 1895 cartoon also tells its explicit story in words on ribbons, this time woven into a larger-than-life floral wreath held up by a solitary female worker in the natural landscape. The ribbons – a convention of political cartoons – declare the ideals of a socialist lifestyle: “Eight Hours,” “Leisure For All,” and “No Starving Children in the Board Schools” in 1894; “The Plough is a Better Backbone than the Factory,” “The Land for the People,” and “Merrie England” in 1895.”……“Crane’s work on these socialist cartoons distinguishes itself by its elegance of style and its relation to his children’s books. The allegorical figure of the woman in “A Garland for May-Day,” for example, stands in delicate contraposto, offering the beauty of nature to, ostensibly, the down-and-out factory laborers from whose lives nature has been forcibly taken. It is an image meant to incite political action, but also to evoke a peaceful, playful, motherly figure – not unlike a benign fairy or guardian in a children’s tale or classical story.” (Source) -- source link

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