Media: Artzybasheff's Diablerie

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 6 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about golden age illustration.

Recently, Danish political cartoons have created a firestorm of controversy all over the world. It shouldn't be surprising that cartoons can evoke this sort of uproar; after all, back in the late 1800s Thomas Nast's caricatures brought down Boss Tweed and in the 1970s, Herb Block was a major thorn in Nixon's side.

World War II was a prime era for political cartoonists. Passions ran high, and the whole world was at stake. We've already looked at Arthur Szyk's "The New Order"... Today we look at more of Boris Artzybasheff's amazing illustrations from As I See.

In his introduction to the chapter entitled "Diablerie", Artzybasheff writes:

"Let's sing hosannas to men this day, for theirs is the triumph of wit! In their long search for better tools and weapons, men at last have found the way of locking a pinch of cosmic force in a sheath of silver-white metal... as well as the means for making it go boom. Any time they wish, or think they must, men can touch off an orgasmic flash, making the oceans boil and seethe with fire, making the soil rise up in crimson dust... Perhaps after the cloud drifts thrice around it, the earth will emerge once more free of living things... In the hush of night this comely planet will go on waltzing in its ordained orbit until God awakens from His sleep and resolves it back to the primordial elements.

I try to shake this thought off; it may be that a healthy planet should have no more life upon it than a well-kept dog has fleas; but what posesses the flea to concoct its own flea powder?"




Plowman, plowman, what of thy hands?


The Headless Horseman


In Pursuit of Zeros


Jet Propulsion: V-One


Radio Propaganda










The Pied Piper of Berchtesgaden




The Balance of Power


The Triumph of Wit


The Witches' Sabbath

Many people who read this blog aren't aware that the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive isn't just a website... it is much more than that. We are archiving these images at high resolution for use in our Animation Center in Burbank. As an example, here is an image of Hitler's eye from the image above at the full resolution of our archival scan...



For more amazing images from "As I See", see Artzybasheff's Neurotica and Machinalia


Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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