John Tenniel

 I belong to a lovely Facebook group called Sketching Everyday. Basically it does what it says on the tin. Every day you're given a prompt as the basis for a drawing or a picture. No pressure - if you want to do it and post it to the group page then great, if not, then no big deal. I will put my hand up and come clean that I tend to fade in and out of the group as the feeling takes me. Well, I checked in last week, and on Thursday saw that the prompt was featured artist Joaquim Frances. Didn't know him, so I googled him and saw he was very much my sort of thing. So I copied one of his sketches that I found on the net, and this is what I came up with:-

Then yesterday, the prompt was Rembrandt, and I copied one of his self-portrait sketches:-

Not perfect at all, but I really enjoyed it. Today, I noticed that on Friday the featured artist is Sir John Tenniel. I was too excited to wait. Rather than copy one of his world famous original illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, I wanted to copy one of his most famous political cartoons. This is my copy of his "Dropping the Pilot"

This famous cartoon appeared in Punch Magazine on 29th March 1890. It shows Count Otto Von Bismarck, in the guise of a ship's pilot, leaving the ship having steered it safely out of port, while the new pilot, Kaiser Wilhelm II looks down on him as he goes. It's a comment on the Kaiser's decision to ask for Bismarck's resignation as Chancellor. It's an exceptionally resonant cartoon, having been adapted by different cartoonists and referenced for the departure of many later political figures. 

Of course it's not the first time I've tried to copy Tenniel's work. I've used his Father Christmas sketches for Punch on a number of  hand drawn Christmas cards for friends and family.

I've even sketched one of his political cartoons before. For Inktober in 2018, when the prompt was the word 'Angular' I used this, copying one of his most famous political cartoons:-

It commemorates Benjamin Disraeli's political opportunism in purchasing the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal. The Khedive was the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, and, strapped for cash, he made Dizzy a once in a lifetime offer, which he couldn't refuse. Tenniel wasn't always so kind to Disraeli, or other politicians. He, and his fellow political cartoonists were often seen as the conscience of the nation, on the side of common sense and decency, and championing the poor and oppressed. Having said that, though, it's difficult to excuse his cartoons on Ireland and Irish affairs. Home Rule for Ireland was a major political issue that grew in importance throughout the second half of the 19th century, and Tenniel had a habit of portraying the Irish as wild, savage, almost subhuman, with ape-like features. One cartoon even compared the Irish Nationalists to Frankenstein's monster. He would depict Ireland through the figure of Hibernia, personified as a helpless young woman, looking towards the older and stronger Britannia for protection and support. 

Of course, he's still best known not for 50 years of political cartoons, but for his illustrations to the original editions of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll allegedly was very keen on having Tenniel because of the way he would sometimes use grotesque animorphisms - animals depicted with human qualities - in his political cartoons, which he saw as a perfect fit for his stories. It was, too, although neither man probably found the other easy to work with, if truth be told. I've copied several of the illustrations in both books over the years : - 

After producing the illustrations for "Alice through the Looking Glass" in 1870, Tenniel wouldn't illustrate another book, although he was asked to do so more than once. He told Lewis Carroll that after Looking Glass he found he had lost the faculty of illustrating novels. Whether this was literally true, or just a symptom of preferring the immediacy of producing his weekly cartoon for Punch to the often labour intensive work of producing book illustrations we can only speculate. 

In 1893 Tenniel was knighted by Queen Victoria - the first ever illustrator or cartoonist to receive this honour. He retired in 1901, when he was 81, and died in 1901 at the age of 93, just short of his 94th birthday. One of the more remarkable yet lesser known facts about Tenniel was that he only had one 'good' eye. His father was a dancing and fencing master and at the age of 20, while practising fencing Tenniel received a serious eye wound from one of his father's swords because the protective tip had come off the point of it. Apparently he never told his father how serious the injury was because he didn't want his father blaming himself. 

I've already mentioned his cartoons about the Irish question, and these make me wonder whether we'd have got on very well as people, if I had the use of a time machine and could go back and meet him. But that's not going to happen any time soon, so I don't have to worry about it. However I love the man's work. That's not too strong a word for it. I first fell under his spell, when I found a copy of Alice in Wonderland when I was very little. Some of the pictures frightened the hell out of me, but I would go back to them time after time. Whenever I see a Tenniel cartoon or illustration, I have an urge to try to copy it. And that's unlikely to ever change.