Análisis de la variable denominada: Análisis de la Situación

a quarrel, at which point Grant transferred his services almost exclusively to John Kendrick. See Notes and

the three men (f Ig s .6 6 - 7 1 ).54

In all these instances, however, there is a perceptible difference in the style of the prints, even when they are almost identical in compositional terms. The line of the wood-engravings is sparser and more angular, and they lack the dominant soft tonality and rounded forms of the lithographs. Thus, the distinct versions can be differentiated in terms of their mode of representation, which in this instance is related to the style employed by each. This in turn is defined by the technique of reproduction (the effect of a lithograph, as discussed above, being different to that of a wood engraving). The principal difference in this instance is related to the contrasting effects achieved by a tonal and a linear technique. In John Bull, Or

and Englishman’s Fireside, for example, the shadows around the figure’s legs

(below the table and the grate of the fireplace) are rendered in graduated tones of grey, rather than being more obviously constructed via tapering black and white lines, as in the wood engraving. Moreover, the grainy quality of the lithograph means that the image is pervaded with a more evocative sense of the gloomy half- light of the sparsely-furnished room, whereas in the wood engraving this is suggested by solid areas of deep black, contrasted with wavering parallel lines.

Thus, while the lithographs could be seen as striving towards some sense of ‘realism’, the wood engravings are more obviously schematic, each style being considered ‘appropriate’ to the levels of acculturation expected of their respective audiences, whose perceptions and expectations had been shaped by their social and cultural backgrounds. In highlighting this distinction, I do not mean to imply that Grant’s lithographs are ‘realistic’ images per se - they are, after all, cartoons - but rather that the inherent qualities of lithography as employed by him here (tonal and chiaroscuro effects, less reliance on outlines, etc....) have a ‘painterly’ quality which implies a degree of ‘realism’ not found in the wholly linear, apparently crudely carved, wood engravings. It was for this same reason that John Doyle (the portraitist) used crayon lithography in his Political Sketches.

So what insight does all this give us into graphic satire of the 1830s? I would argue that the issues explored in the above chapters - the increasing prominence

54 It seems probable that the wood-engraved versions were the first to appear, the first issue of Drake’s series is the seventh of Tregear’s; the second is the sixth; and the fourth Is the eighth. Moreover, the seventh issue of Tregear’s series states that it is the “second édition". Whether this is in relation to the wood

of the publisher's name; the numerous instances of collaboration; the recycling of popular designs; and the apparent freedom with which images were translated into different media and disseminated throughout different milieu - all point to a definite diminution of the graphic satirist's authorial voice in the 1830s (and what we must assume was an acceptance of this situation on the part of the artists themselves). The implications of this would be significant for the development of satirical illustration in the decades to follow, making it that much easier for their work to be subsumed within the body of a periodical, which so often functioned as a combination of anonymous elements, none of which held any obvious precedence (in authorial' terms) over the others.

In a sense, we can think of the 1830s as a period in which graphic satirists - whether working in lithography or wood engraving - were gradually coming to terms with the changes being experienced in the print trade as a whole and the periodical press in particular. However, while artists and publishers made every attempt to adapt to the new reproductive technologies, their efforts did not enable them to establish a convincing and durable tradition of satirical illustration to replace that which had disappeared in 1832. The decade was one of experimentation and numerous false starts, none of which endured for more than a few years at a time. Only once the absorption of graphic satire by the periodical press was fully realised, becoming rigidly conventionalised in the pages of Punch,

would a readily-definible tradition emerge to replace that of the Georgian era. As already emphasised, we can view the experimentation of the 1830s as symptomatic of the need to accomodate these new technologies and the constraints they placed upon the creation of images. More than this, though, it was the result of a desire to establish new formats - most of them utilising the conventions of periodicity to some extent - which influenced the form and style of graphic satire during the period. Subsequent chapters will focus upon the most important of these formats, and the ways in which they shaped the images they contained.