{"id":23034,"date":"2024-09-10T10:27:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T09:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=23034"},"modified":"2024-09-11T21:06:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T20:06:24","slug":"media-books-mr-gillray-draper-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=23034","title":{"rendered":"MEDiA\/BOOKS: Mr Gillray, Draper Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019m massively impressed by this book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Draper Hill, an American cartoonist, clearly had a consuming passion for Gillray. The research evident in this work, first published in the mid 1960s – added to how many (esp\u2019 of the more obscure) Gillray artworks are \u2018from the author\u2019s collection\u2019 – is quite astonishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since first encountering Gillray\u2019s incredible prints, via my interests in Napoleonic era history, I\u2019ve been blown away by them. Learning more about the man who created these complex and now potentially obscure\/hard to decipher works is utterly fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P. 155 \u2018Comprehension by a later generation requires a certain expenditure of effort.\u2019 Very true, Mr Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Presages of The New Millennium<\/em>, 1795. (Fitzwilliam Museum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the usual biographical stuff, that one expects on any subject – birth, childhood background, education, etc. – one of the threads of chief interest with Gillray, given his milieu, political satire, is who is \u2018paying the piper\u2019? Whose ideas are we seeing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Draper Hill goes into as much detail as the sources available to him permit. And it makes for fascinating reading. After a youthful period of being a gun for hire, Gillray became steadily more allied to Tories, like George Canning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often it\u2019s Canning\u2019s ideas, or those of other paying clients\/masters, that Gillray deploys his immense talents on behalf of. But that said, as Hill notes, a lot of Gillray\u2019s output, perhaps more so in the general \u2018social satire\u2019 arena, as opposed to political satire, and\/or propaganda, drawer on his own ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Draper Hill, at work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A Hill cartoon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve had this book ages now. And started reading it I can\u2019t even remember when. I picked it up again, as a kind of light reprieve from the N. A. M. Rodgers\u2019 naval trilogy (I\u2019ve literally just finished Vol II of the latter), and I\u2019m thoroughly enjoying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I resumed reading it yesterday, only a few pages in. And now I\u2019m on the final rather sad chapter, \u2018Disintegration\u2019. It\u2019s a compelling story, to me at any rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gillray, self-portrait miniature.*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also very interesting, how this book connects to Vol. II of Rodgers\u2019 naval history, the latter ending, as it does, in the era of the French Revolution and Great Wars (as the Napoleonic period was known at the time). Consequently many of the folk Gillray either has dealings with, or depicts, were also recent subjects of Command of the Ocean<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, if slightly floridly written – especially impressive as this is not the author\u2019s chief area of professional competence – incredibly well researched (the more so for someone not a professional academic), this is clearly a labour of love on Hill\u2019s part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Georgian satire could be very<\/em> earthy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I love it! And highly recommend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Prob\u2019 painted for Hannah Humphreys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOTE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the illustrations in the book under review are black and white. I\u2019ve included a couple of coloured ones here, to convey a fuller effect of Gillray\u2019s work. If the potentially interested reader seeks decent colour reproductions, a better place to go than Draper Hill\u2019s book – first and foremost a biography – is Clayton\u2019s much more recent work, James Gillray, a Revolution In Satire<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FOOTNOTE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book references numerous things that excite my interest, including such things as Broadley\u2019s catalogue of Napoleonic prints, etc. Indeed, there are a great many quite diverse things Hill refers to I\u2019d like to explore further. One such is this<\/a>, a handwriting guide, using numerous bon mots<\/em> to aid the cultivation of good penmanship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m massively impressed by this book. Draper Hill, an American cartoonist, clearly had a consuming passion for Gillray. The research evident in this work, first published in the mid 1960s – added to how many (esp\u2019 of the more obscure) Gillray artworks are \u2018from the author\u2019s collection\u2019 – is quite astonishing. Ever since first encountering … <\/p>\n

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