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In 1867, Nast created the Grand
Caricaturama, which was exhibited in New York beginning December 4, 1867,
and in Boston beginning March 30, 1868. It consisted of 33 large paintings each one eight
feet high by twelve feet wide. |
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As seated audiences watched in delight, the
pictures were moved across the stage; they were accompanied by a spoken narration and
relevant piano pieces. Both the press and the audiences were favorable impressed. |
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Two of the 33 pictures dealt with New
Orleans. The Massacre of New Orleans showed Andrew Johnson
hiding in a building while the July 1866 rioting went on nearby. A tune called Oh,
Fatal Hour was played to highlight it. |
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"The Massacre of New
Orleans",
Painted by Thomas Nast
for "The Grand Caricaturama"
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The other picture
called King Cotton was accompanied by Way Down South
in Dixie as the program listed it. The description below was written by art
historian Lloyd Goodrich for a 1970 museum exhibition under the auspices of the Whitney
Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian Institution. |
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"King Cotton", Painted
by Thomas Nast
for "The Grand Caricaturama"
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A skinny old king with
hair and beard of cotton, a huge oversize crown on his head, a whip in his hand, sits on
his throne, while Negro slaves bring him cool drinks, and female slaves fan him. Britannia
and Napoleon III prostrate themselves before him and deposit their crowns at his
feet—a reminder that during the Civil War the governments and manufacturing interests
of some European states, dependent on Southern cotton, had sided with the Confederacy. |
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The base
of the dais is inscribed "Slavery." In the elaborate ornamentation around the
throne the repeated "C. S. A." is of course "Confederate States of
America." The S’s and C’s are copperheads. The crocodiles in the proscenium
arch refer to the National Union Convention of 1866, an attempt to unite conservatives of
both parties, North and South, behind the President’s policies. At the opening,
Governor James Orr of South Carolina and General Darius Couch of Massachusetts had entered
arm-in-arm, symbolizing the reconciliation of the two old enemies, while the band played
"The Star-spangled Banner" and "Dixie," and everybody wept. Nast in a
cartoon, "The Tearful Convention," had ridiculed this by a crocodile and a
copperhead arm-in-arm, both weeping; and thereafter the two reptiles played a leading part
in his cartoons.The throne-room is crowded with militant leaders of the
Confederacy, shown as knights in armor, heavily burlesqued. Their armor is a fantasy of
grotesque shapes, with sharp aggressive points projecting all over, long plumes, and
helmets like the heads of geese, serpents and pigs. Their weapons are ludicrously large
and cumbersome. The tall figure at the left, crowned with horns and sitting on a shield
with the emblem of a circle, probably represents the recently spawned Ku Klux Klan, whose
name was said to be based on the Greek word for circle, kyklos. To terrify Negroes, Klan
members often donned disguises to increase their height, with fancy features such as
horns. It is perhaps significant that the faces of most of the knights are concealed by
their helmets.
The whole pictorial concept
is theatrical: the strutting figures with their bogus arms and armor, posing as if before
footlights; the stage and its charade; the baroque architecture and decoration—all
reflect Nast’s love of the theater, and his effective use of theatrical devices to
ridicule his enemies.
Lloyd Goodrich, 1970 |
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