pilferingapples: kainosite:pilferingapples:danskjavlarna:From L'Eclipse, 1872. Here’s lo
pilferingapples: kainosite: pilferingapples: danskjavlarna: From L'Eclipse, 1872. Here’s looking at you: over 500 vintage “faces in things”. On the rise: my collection of vintage sun imagery. Some rather surprising vintage candle imagery. Thumbing noses through the ages. The imagery that Tumblr bizarrely deemed insensitive to community standards: Weblog ◆ Books ◆ Videos ◆ Music ◆ Etsy This one’s called “The Eclipse of January 7” (it came out Jan. 14th) and is about Hugo and Vautrin and…that’s all I’ve been able to turn up on it? Anyone know more about this particular Hugolania? It’s Hugo and Vautrain - important distinction! Not the fictional fugitive convict and gay criminal mastermind from Balzac’s Comédie Humaine, but rather moderate republican politician Joseph Vautrain, who ran against Hugo in the January 7th 1872 Seine by-election and defeated him 122,395 votes to 95,900. Contested issues were the old “Should your deputy be a delegate or a representative?” debate (Hugo was Team Delegate, Vautrain Team Representative), laïcité (Hugo) vs. freedom of education (Vautrain), and whether Hugo was too soft on Communards and would thereby delay the transfer of power from Versailles back to Paris. The monarchists, realizing they obviously weren’t going to win a Parisian election, didn’t bother to put up a candidate; they ordered their supporters to abstain but Vautrain may have benefited from some conservative crossover voting. The thought “Victor Hugo just fucking resigned from the National Assembly nine months ago; why should we send this drama queen back so he can flounce out again in a week?” may also have crossed some voters’ minds. I have no idea what the joke in the cartoon is meant to be. My best guess given the context is that Vautrain’s pathetic liberal candle is trying to blot out Hugo’s radical socialist sun and not succeeding very well, but if that’s the intended reading it was poorly drawn – the more obvious interpretation is that Vautrain’s candle is melting/being knocked back by the radiance of Hugo’s sun, only that makes no sense because it was Vautrain who won the election and the cartoonist must have known that at the time of publication. This one is better, IMO: • Obvious book title joke ✓ • Makes fun of Hugo’s enormous forehead ✓ • Addresses an actual issue in the campaign (Hugo’s muddled position on the delegates vs. representatives question) ✓ • Correctly represents the results of the election ✓ • Still interpretable 147 years later ✓ Yeah I want to say “ wow knowing it’s Vautrain makes that cartoon way more legible” but if anything I’m more confused by what was supposed to be happening there then when I assumed it was some kind of weird Literary CommentThe second one is very readable, you’re right! I love the idea of Hugo’s Giant Forehead as a big ol’ billboard about his internal state. -- source link