Pro Bono Publico: James Gillray and the Art of Satire

There are few genres of art that express cultural climate more directly and clearly than satire. In England caricature emerged in response to the South Sea Bubble, a notorious stock market crash in 1720 that left many in financial ruin. From then on, few individuals or opinions were safe from the bite of a satirical artist. William Hogarth (1697-1764) was the earliest and best-known figure, but James Gillray (1757-1815) demonstrated the most acerbic wit and the fiercest hand. Adopting the battle cry Pro Bono Publico (“for the public good”), Gillray subjected every sort of hypocrisy, deceit and foible to physical exaggeration and deep irony. The visual equivalent of newspaper editorial and righteous tabloid, Gillray’s prints informed, amused and shaped opinion at every level of society. They are the direct ancestors of the modern political cartoon, and while most of their subjects are forgotten, their themes are everlasting.

Gillray was unbiased when choosing a victim and often criticized both sides of an issue, depending on who was funding the publication. He went as far as creating satires to force their subjects to buy up editions and thus suppress their circulation. The political, social and cultural landscapes in England at the turn of the nineteenth century offered Gillray abundant material. The country had recently lost the war of the American Revolution, age-old tensions with France escalated during the French Revolution (1789-1799) and continued through the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), political opposition battled endlessly, government leaders changed frequently, and morality was generally thought to have declined. Throughout, however, England proved ready to accept the consequences of such truly free expression. In that sense, Gillray’s art is not only extreme but exemplary.