polka dots or not.

O n Tuesday I showed a cd cover that, unbeknownst to me at the time, has been attracting some controversy. See here and here as to how and why the image is racist. I would not presume to interfere with anyone's right to take offence, but while modern caricatures are unusual on classical era music, they are not completely unknown. I showed a cd cover by cartoonist Bill Leak back in June, depicting Mozart seated upon the toilet, and while I didn't think it relevant to say so at the time, I'm not too keen on that one either. Perhaps there is something of a Victorian streak in me. I am more attracted to a cartoonist of the calibre of Jerry Robinson, whom I quoted here yesterday on an unrelated topic:

Robinson often draws in an angular humorous style as in the 1992 cartoon above. Then in this attractive illustration of the young Mozart which I scanned from the Robinson interview in the Comics Journal #271, the artist has taken the trouble, unlike the fellow in the controversial cartoon, to know how a violin is held by its owner, and gives us a nicely observed drawing of a young lad in 18th century period costume. My dislike of the other images mentioned above is due entirely to a problem we find with many cartoonists. They have only one way of doing things.