Chosen images for the essay

This post is to show the two images i have chosen to analyse in my essay the first image by James Gillray and the second image by Gerald Scarfe. Two illustrators i very much admire because of their work. I have also chosen these two in particular because it is i believe important to show a contrast between the work of a 18th Century illustrator and a contemporary one to see what similarities and differences there are in the two pieces. 

This image is by James Gillray and is titled 'Little Boney in a fit' as it is a depiction of Napoleon Bonaparte who is in a sorry mental state or at leas the caricature shows that probably because of the fact he had lost a war or something along those lines. With this image in response to it Napoleon was quoted as saying " Gillray did more than all the armies in Europe to bring me down" which i think is an amazing testament to the power of a political cartoon, an aspect which i will be exploring in depth in my essay.

This image is by Gerald scarfe and it is titled 'Torydactyl' which is a brilliant play on word of tory and the word pterodactyl and it is a depiction of Margaret Thatcher. The amazing thing is about Scarfes work is it doesn't necessarily have any great resembling features of Thatcher however through the brilliant use of anthropomorphising her it carries the same likeness that all his other Thatcher caricatures have. It is also a brilliant satirical comment on how Scarfe felt about Thatcher's sharp almost cut throat nature. 

Deciding on the chosen theme for my essay

Deciding on my chosen theme for the essay question 

 After deciding what my essay question would be the next thing to consider is what my chosen theme would be to explore within the question. This is a very tricky thing to do and i find it very hard on what to utlimately decide on, as there are many possible topics/themes out there. 

My first topic i thought to explore on was general propaganda posters and of course illustrations that appear on them. However i felt this was a rather generic apporoach to take and i also felt it wasnt me being very imaginative. I believe this is an issue as one of the key aspects i believe to conducting an essay such as this is that i must pick a topic that engages me and will also engage the reader, if i feel like i am getting bored halfway through then so will the reader. 

My second topic that i considered to explore was the political satirical cartoons of Maragaret Thatcher in her term of power which was from 1979 to 1990. I was thinking about focusing on whether the political cartoons which depicted her in a harsh light had any effect on the thoughts of the general public and whether it had a role on swaying their opinions about her and causing a turnover in the government. I would of particuarly focused on the satirical works of Gerald Scarfe and Steve Bell. However this too was a problematic topic as it does not have much solid supporting sources which are 1. academic and 2. talk about the issues i intended to write about.  

-  http://www.theguardian.com/politics/interactive/2013/apr/11/margaret-thatcher-legacy-best-writing#hugo-young 

i felt this was an interesting website which had an insight as to what impact thatcher had had publicly but it certainly was not what i needed in order to conduct the essay.  

Finally the third topic is the one i have now settled on and that is the role of Political cartoons/caricatures throughout History. This will be exploring what the importance/significance of political cartoons were at the time. Examples will be work fom the greats such as James Gillray, George Cruikshank, William Hogarth and i will then compare them to modern day people such as the previously mentioned of Gerald Scafe, Steve Bell and others i shall encounter. 

Im obviously now at a point where i havnt collected sources that will help instigate arguments and ideas for the essay however this website i found useful which i have found in my very intial research. 

 -  http://www.buzzfeed.com/victornavasky/15-historic-cartoons-that-changed-the-world#.haxGrQWw5

Bibliography/reference point

This is my bibliography/what I've collected so far to use for my essay material and research. 

 Websites:

• http://cradledincaricature.com/2012/05/19/nottingham-contemporary-james-gillray/
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/victornavasky/15-historic-cartoons-that-changed-the-world#.coAQeGpzw
• https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/James_Gillray

Books:

• Lines of Attack - Conflicts in Caricature - Edited by Neil Mcwilliam
• Caricatures of the People of the British Isles - Tim Clayton

Videos 

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFnfd7ARR5g
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgjdlR4OYyU
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeoeIPG_YrY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1tH2mVJ3P4