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Playing With Otherness: Within and Beyond Stereotypes in Visual Representations
This sketch is based on caricatures and drawings—sources drawn from a broader
category of illustrative material. Illustrativeness, understood as the transition from
the separateness of illustration to its treatment as one of the elements that contrib¬
utes to a harmonious whole of a work of art, appeared in the twentieth century."
The illustration was not a faithful depiction of content, but rather it was treated as
a “staging,” a visual expression of the work that it accompanied, sometimes straying
from the subject of the whole. Initially, the illustration was subordinate to the texts
narrative, however, as the twentieth century advanced, the interpretative illustra¬
tion developed as a creative commentary, highlighting a relevant aspect of the work.
The materials presented here were taken from the satirical magazine Mucha (The
Fly) and Biesiada Literacka (Literary Feast), published in Warsaw, and also from
other sources, such as Liberum Veto from Cracow.
Such sources provide a sense of the viewpoints that were then appearing or were
prevailing. They demonstrated a certain form of public opinion, as understood by
Charles Taylor,” and defined as the ground for discussion, where people who shared
the same opinions, but who were scattered over a large territory, became united in a
unique dispute domain within which they could exchange ideas and reach a com¬
mon ground (Taylor 2010: 119).
The readers are seen as connected to one another via the media—in the nine¬
teenth century, these were print media. Apart from newspapers, books were also
circulating among the educated readership, presenting theses, arguments, and coun¬
terarguments, mutually supporting or invalidating one another. As we can see in
images and in caricatures, those texts were available in drawing rooms and cafés,
and so could be read? and discussed during face-to-face encounters.
This kind of common space was also filled with certain images. The most
frequent objects of interest for the Polish satirical press* of the time were issues re¬
lated to the process of modernization and the polarization of society, which was its
result—the old and the new world; the longing for the old, quiet life; the triumph
of technology; steam machines; railways; steamers; the towns; public transport; the
mentions of traffic accidents; the Polish countryside; vagrancy; and much more.
This art began its development with the invention of print and the development of journalistic and
literary publications.
2 Citing Habermas he points out the birth of a new notion of public opinion in western Europe in the
eighteenth century. According to him, dispersed texts and discussions among the members of small or
local groups begin to be regarded as one big debate, out of which public opinion of the whole society
emerges (Taylor 2010: 118).
3 Taylor states that for the development of the public sphere “print capitalism” is indispensable (Ibi¬
dem: 120).
4 Mucha (The Fly) (1868-1952), Liberum Veto (1903-1905), Smieszek (Joker) (1912-1914), Szczutek
(The Flick) (1869-1919), Diabet (The Devil) (1869-1919), Satyr. Tygodnik Humorystyczno-satyryczny (The
Satyr. Humorous and Satirical Weekly) (1918-1919), Wröble na Dachu (Sparrows on the Roof) (1929¬
1939).
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