Vinegar Valentine

Research Brief:

“Vinegar valentines are greeting cards, or rather insult cards. They are decorated with a caricature, and below an insulting poem. Ostensibly given on Valentine’s Day, the caricature and poem is about the “type” that the recipient belongs to—spinster, floozy, dude, scholar, etc.”

Below are various examples of  vinegar valentines. Largely they evolve around one illustration depicting  satirical look at the chosen figure.

Gustave Dore:

As a starting point I looked at the work of Gustave Dore. Although satire in the 21st century is by and large a television-based affair; Doré’s considerable career as a satirist for Parisian publications, including Le Journal amusant, Journal pour rire, and Le Monde illustré. Doré’s fame and productivity translated into humour in magazines at the age of 15 and by 16 was the highest-paid illustrator in France. However, they were also dependent on the emerging industry of immediate news. Satire is often based on swift response; a cartoon in the same week’s paper would have a far more pointed impact than a delayed one. The news cycle allowed Doré to extend his lampooning pen internationally, pricking national self-conceptions as he went. Below are some examples.

Subject: SNP, Nicola Sturgeon.

Rise of Nicola Sturgeon: Shallow empress of north Britain

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon. She has been continuously in politics since the age of 16, and for the last 8 years has been at the top of the Scottish government. Sturgeon is relaxed about Scotland being a province of the EU with far less power than it now has in devolved Britain. Her primary drive is divide the UK with divisive referendums. Hell bent on politics based around self entitlement that has little if any true political clout on an international stage. The SNP is convinced that, regardless of the subsidies from the British government, they will better off out. I say ‘fuck off’ then!

 

Concept Drawings:

Initially I played with the idea of depicting Alex Salmond as a Jack in the Box caricature. The idea being of a joke that never goes away. But the development of this concept was difficult to execute.

 

 

Ode:

Nicola Sturgeon the Shallow Empress

Pushing your agenda down our necks

Your resolute to break my heart by making sure that we will part

Trying to divide and trying to spilt

the UK up…

you fucking bitch.

 

Critical Analysis

The overall composition of the final piece contained all the elements as intended. However, the material used was difficult to use and the colours and inking become transparent and illegible. As a satirical exercise the illustration contained elements that are recognisable as the subject.  There is room for further development and perhaps a greater exploration of this subject. The rendering of Sturgeon lacked the visual vitriol that I had intended to convey which is why the final composition is a little lacklustre in execution.