John Tenniel
Encyclopedia
Sir John Tenniel was a British illustrator
, graphic humorist and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories. Tenniel is most noted for two major accomplishments: he was the principal political cartoonist for England’s Punch
magazine for over 50 years, and he was the artist who illustrated Lewis Carroll
’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
.
. In 1836 he sent his first picture to the exhibition of the Society of British Artists, and in 1845 he contributed a 16 feet (4.9 m) cartoon, An Allegory of Justice, to a competition for designs for the mural decoration of the new Palace of Westminster
. For this he received a £200 premium and a commission to paint a fresco in the Upper Waiting Hall (or Hall of Poets) in the House of Lords
.
In 1840 Tenniel, while practicing fencing with his father, received a serious wound in his eye from his father's foil, which had accidentally lost its protective tip. Over the years Tenniel gradually lost sight in his right eye; he never told his father of the severity of the wound, as he did not wish to upset his father to any greater degree than he had been.
In spite of his tendency towards high art, he was already known and appreciated as a humorist, and his early companionship with Charles Keene fostered and developed his talent for scholarly caricature.
As the influential result of his position as the chief cartoon artist for Punch
(published 1841–1992, 1996–2002), John Tenniel, through satirical, often radical and at times vitriolic images of the world, for five decades was and remained Great Britain’s steadfast social witness to the sweeping national changes in that nation’s moment of political and social reform.
At Christmas 1850 he was invited by Mark Lemon
to fill the position of joint cartoonist (with John Leech) on Punch. He had been selected on the strength of his recent illustrations to Aesop
's Fables. He contributed his first drawing in the initial letter appearing on p. 224, vol. xix. His first cartoon was Lord Jack the Giant Killer, which showed Lord John Russell
assailing Cardinal Wiseman.
In 1857 people in India violently rebelled against British rule
. The British public was outraged and took delight in bloody vengeance, including mass-killings of civilians. Punch was no different and contained illustrations such as Tenniel's "Justice" and "The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger".
When examined separately from the book illustrations he did over time, Tenniel’s work at Punch alone, expressing decades of editorial viewpoints, often controversial and socially sensitive, was created to ultimately echo the voices of the British public, and is in itself massive. Tenniel executed 2,165 separate cartoons for Punch
, a liberal and politically active publication that took full advantage of the Victorian time’s mood for want of liberal social changes; thus Tenniel, in his cartoons, represented for years the conscience of the British people.
In deference to the thousands of political cartoons and hundreds of illustrative works attributed to him, a measurable amount of Tenniel’s fame comes specifically from his work as the illustrator of Alice. To establish his place within the Alice canon, Tenniel drew ninety-two drawings for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (London: Macmillan, 1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
(London: Macmillan, 1871).
As the original illustrator for his book, Lewis Carroll’s own artistic inabilities, among other problems, held back Wonderland to a degree. Not until engraver Orlando Jewitt, who had done work for Carroll before in 1859 and had reviewed Carroll’s illustrations for Wonderland, had suggested employment of a professional draughtsman did Carroll look to find an outside artist. With such a reputation seemingly firm and in place for both Punch and Tenniel, it would stand to reason that the artist’s public status attracted high levels of attention and notoriety from his peers and the public; Carroll, a regular reader of Punch, knew, of course, of Tenniel. In 1865 Tenniel, after considerable talks with Carroll, illustrated the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The first print run of 2,000 was shelved because Tenniel objected to the print quality; a new edition (the first edition was resold in America), released in December of the same year but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed and became an instant best-seller, securing Tenniel's lasting fame in the process. His illustrations for both books have taken their place among the most famous literary illustrations ever made. After the Carroll projects were finished, Tenniel did virtually no such work after 1872. Carroll did at some later time approached Tenniel again to undertake another project for him. To this Tenniel replied:
Tenniel's illustrations for the Alice books were engraved onto blocks of wood, to be printed in the wood engraving
process. The original wood blocks are now in the collection of the Bodleian Library
in Oxford. They are not usually on public display, but were exhibited in 2003.
In his career Tenniel contributed around 2,300 cartoons, innumerable minor drawings, double-page cartoons for Punch's Almanac and other special numbers, and 250 designs for Punch's Pocket-books. By 1885 he was earning a $7,000 annual salary for his weekly Punch cartoon—the equivalent of more than $165,000 today. An ultimate tribute came to an elderly Tenniel as he was honored as a living national treasure and for his public service was knighted in 1893 by Queen Victoria. The first such honor ever bequeathed on an illustrator or cartoonist, his fellows saw his knighting coming as gratitude for “raising what had been a fairly lowly profession to an unprecedented level of respectability.” With knighthood, Tenniel elevated the social status the black and white illustrator, and sparked a new sense of recognition of and occupational honor to his life-long profession.
and would have felt the suggestions of political tensions from Parliament as well, Tenniel’s work, as was its design, could be scathing in effect. The restlessness of the Victorian period’s issues of working class radicalism, labor, war, economy, and other national themes were the targets of Punch, which in turn commanded the nature of Tenniel’s subjects. Several of Tenniel's political cartoons expressed strong hostility to Irish Nationalism
, with Fenian
s and Land leagues
depicted as monstrous, ape-like brutes, while "Hibernia
"—the personification of Ireland—was depicted as a beautiful, helpless young girl threatened by these monsters and turning for protection to "her elder sister", the powerful armoured Britannia
.
His drawing of 'An unequal match', published in Punch on 8 October 1881, depicted a police officer fighting a criminal with only a 'baton' for protection, trying to put a point across to the public that policing methods needed to be changed.
, presided. Punch historian M. H. Spielmann, who knew Tenniel, understood that the political clout contained in his Punch cartoons was capable of “swaying parties and people, too… (the cartoons) exercised great influence” on the ideas of popular reform skirting throughout the British public. Early tributes as to what Tenniel in his role as a national observer meant to the British nation around the time of his death came in as high praise; in 1914 New York Tribune journalist George W. Smalley referred to John Tenniel as “one of the greatest intellectual forces of his time, (who) understood social laws and political energies.”
On 27 February 1914, two days after his death, the Daily Graphic recalled Tenniel: "He had an influence on the political feeling of this time which is hardly measurable…While Tenniel was drawing them (his subjects), we always looked to the Punch cartoon to crystallize the national and international situation, and the popular feeling about it—and never looked in vain." This condition of social influence resulted from the weekly publishing over a fifty year span of his political cartoons, whereby Tenniel's fame allowed for a want and need for his particular illustrative work, away from the newspaper. Tenniel became not only one of Victorian England’s most published illustrators, but as a Punch cartoonist he became one of the “supreme social observers” of British society, and an integral component of a powerful journalistic force.
Public exhibitions of Sir John Tenniel's work were held in 1895 and in 1900. Sir John Tenniel is also the author of one of the mosaic
s, Leonardo da Vinci
, in the South Court in the Victoria and Albert Museum
; while his highly stippled watercolour drawings appeared from time to time in the exhibitions of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
, of which he had been elected a member in 1874.
Illustrated by Tenniel in collaboration:
He also contributed to Once a Week, the Art Union publications, etc.
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
, graphic humorist and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories. Tenniel is most noted for two major accomplishments: he was the principal political cartoonist for England’s Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
magazine for over 50 years, and he was the artist who illustrated Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
.
Early life
He was born in London and educated himself for his career, although he became a probationer, and then a student, of the Royal AcademyRoyal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
. In 1836 he sent his first picture to the exhibition of the Society of British Artists, and in 1845 he contributed a 16 feet (4.9 m) cartoon, An Allegory of Justice, to a competition for designs for the mural decoration of the new Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
. For this he received a £200 premium and a commission to paint a fresco in the Upper Waiting Hall (or Hall of Poets) in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
In 1840 Tenniel, while practicing fencing with his father, received a serious wound in his eye from his father's foil, which had accidentally lost its protective tip. Over the years Tenniel gradually lost sight in his right eye; he never told his father of the severity of the wound, as he did not wish to upset his father to any greater degree than he had been.
In spite of his tendency towards high art, he was already known and appreciated as a humorist, and his early companionship with Charles Keene fostered and developed his talent for scholarly caricature.
Cartoonist
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
(published 1841–1992, 1996–2002), John Tenniel, through satirical, often radical and at times vitriolic images of the world, for five decades was and remained Great Britain’s steadfast social witness to the sweeping national changes in that nation’s moment of political and social reform.
At Christmas 1850 he was invited by Mark Lemon
Mark Lemon
Mark Lemon was founding editor of both Punch and The Field.-Biography:Lemon was born in London on the 30 November 1809. He was the son of Martin Lemon, a hop merchant, and Alice Collis. His parents married on 26 December 1808 at St Mary, Marylebone, London...
to fill the position of joint cartoonist (with John Leech) on Punch. He had been selected on the strength of his recent illustrations to Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
's Fables. He contributed his first drawing in the initial letter appearing on p. 224, vol. xix. His first cartoon was Lord Jack the Giant Killer, which showed Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....
assailing Cardinal Wiseman.
In 1857 people in India violently rebelled against British rule
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
. The British public was outraged and took delight in bloody vengeance, including mass-killings of civilians. Punch was no different and contained illustrations such as Tenniel's "Justice" and "The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger".
When examined separately from the book illustrations he did over time, Tenniel’s work at Punch alone, expressing decades of editorial viewpoints, often controversial and socially sensitive, was created to ultimately echo the voices of the British public, and is in itself massive. Tenniel executed 2,165 separate cartoons for Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
, a liberal and politically active publication that took full advantage of the Victorian time’s mood for want of liberal social changes; thus Tenniel, in his cartoons, represented for years the conscience of the British people.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
(London: Macmillan, 1871).
As the original illustrator for his book, Lewis Carroll’s own artistic inabilities, among other problems, held back Wonderland to a degree. Not until engraver Orlando Jewitt, who had done work for Carroll before in 1859 and had reviewed Carroll’s illustrations for Wonderland, had suggested employment of a professional draughtsman did Carroll look to find an outside artist. With such a reputation seemingly firm and in place for both Punch and Tenniel, it would stand to reason that the artist’s public status attracted high levels of attention and notoriety from his peers and the public; Carroll, a regular reader of Punch, knew, of course, of Tenniel. In 1865 Tenniel, after considerable talks with Carroll, illustrated the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The first print run of 2,000 was shelved because Tenniel objected to the print quality; a new edition (the first edition was resold in America), released in December of the same year but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed and became an instant best-seller, securing Tenniel's lasting fame in the process. His illustrations for both books have taken their place among the most famous literary illustrations ever made. After the Carroll projects were finished, Tenniel did virtually no such work after 1872. Carroll did at some later time approached Tenniel again to undertake another project for him. To this Tenniel replied:
“It is a curious fact that with ‘Looking-Glass’ the faculty of making drawings for book illustrations departed from me, and [...] I have done nothing in that direction since.”
Tenniel's illustrations for the Alice books were engraved onto blocks of wood, to be printed in the wood engraving
Wood engraving
Wood engraving is a technique in printmaking where the "matrix" worked by the artist is a block of wood. It is a variety of woodcut and so a relief printing technique, where ink is applied to the face of the block and printed by using relatively low pressure. A normal engraving, like an etching,...
process. The original wood blocks are now in the collection of the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
in Oxford. They are not usually on public display, but were exhibited in 2003.
In his career Tenniel contributed around 2,300 cartoons, innumerable minor drawings, double-page cartoons for Punch's Almanac and other special numbers, and 250 designs for Punch's Pocket-books. By 1885 he was earning a $7,000 annual salary for his weekly Punch cartoon—the equivalent of more than $165,000 today. An ultimate tribute came to an elderly Tenniel as he was honored as a living national treasure and for his public service was knighted in 1893 by Queen Victoria. The first such honor ever bequeathed on an illustrator or cartoonist, his fellows saw his knighting coming as gratitude for “raising what had been a fairly lowly profession to an unprecedented level of respectability.” With knighthood, Tenniel elevated the social status the black and white illustrator, and sparked a new sense of recognition of and occupational honor to his life-long profession.
Political cartoons
Because his task was to construct the willful choices of his Punch editors, who probably took their cue from The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and would have felt the suggestions of political tensions from Parliament as well, Tenniel’s work, as was its design, could be scathing in effect. The restlessness of the Victorian period’s issues of working class radicalism, labor, war, economy, and other national themes were the targets of Punch, which in turn commanded the nature of Tenniel’s subjects. Several of Tenniel's political cartoons expressed strong hostility to Irish Nationalism
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
, with Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
s and Land leagues
Irish National Land League
The Irish Land League was an Irish political organization of the late 19th century which sought to help poor tenant farmers. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on...
depicted as monstrous, ape-like brutes, while "Hibernia
Hibernia (personification)
Hibernia as a national personification representing Ireland appeared in numerous cartoon and drawings, especially in the nineteenth century.As depicted in frequent cartoons in Punch, a magazine outspokenly hostile to Irish nationalism, Hibernia was shown as "Britannia's younger sister". She is an...
"—the personification of Ireland—was depicted as a beautiful, helpless young girl threatened by these monsters and turning for protection to "her elder sister", the powerful armoured Britannia
Britannia
Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...
.
His drawing of 'An unequal match', published in Punch on 8 October 1881, depicted a police officer fighting a criminal with only a 'baton' for protection, trying to put a point across to the public that policing methods needed to be changed.
Later life and after his death
When he retired in January 1901, Tenniel was honored with a farewell banquet (12 June), at which AJ Balfour, then Leader of the House of CommonsLeader of the House of Commons
The Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons...
, presided. Punch historian M. H. Spielmann, who knew Tenniel, understood that the political clout contained in his Punch cartoons was capable of “swaying parties and people, too… (the cartoons) exercised great influence” on the ideas of popular reform skirting throughout the British public. Early tributes as to what Tenniel in his role as a national observer meant to the British nation around the time of his death came in as high praise; in 1914 New York Tribune journalist George W. Smalley referred to John Tenniel as “one of the greatest intellectual forces of his time, (who) understood social laws and political energies.”
On 27 February 1914, two days after his death, the Daily Graphic recalled Tenniel: "He had an influence on the political feeling of this time which is hardly measurable…While Tenniel was drawing them (his subjects), we always looked to the Punch cartoon to crystallize the national and international situation, and the popular feeling about it—and never looked in vain." This condition of social influence resulted from the weekly publishing over a fifty year span of his political cartoons, whereby Tenniel's fame allowed for a want and need for his particular illustrative work, away from the newspaper. Tenniel became not only one of Victorian England’s most published illustrators, but as a Punch cartoonist he became one of the “supreme social observers” of British society, and an integral component of a powerful journalistic force.
Public exhibitions of Sir John Tenniel's work were held in 1895 and in 1900. Sir John Tenniel is also the author of one of the mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
s, Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, in the South Court in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
; while his highly stippled watercolour drawings appeared from time to time in the exhibitions of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours , initially called the New Society of Painters in Water Colours, , is one of the societies in the Federation of British Artists, based in the Mall Galleries in London.-History:In 1831 the society was founded as the New Society of Painters in Water...
, of which he had been elected a member in 1874.
Works
Illustrated by Tenniel:- Juvenile Verse and Picture Book, (1846)
- UndineUndine (novella)Undine is a novel by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldebrand in order to gain a soul. It is an early German romance, which has been translated into English and other languages...
(1846) - Aesop's FablesAesop's FablesAesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
, 100 drawings (1848) - BlairRobert Blair (poet)Robert Blair was a Scottish poet.-Biography:He was the eldest son of the Rev. Robert Blair, one of the king's chaplains, and was born at Edinburgh. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and in the Netherlands, and in 1731 was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford in East Lothian...
's Grave (1858) - Shirley Brooks' The Gordian Knot (1860)
- Shirley BrooksShirley BrooksCharles William Shirley Brooks , journalist and novelist, born in London, began life in a solicitor's office. He early, however, took to literature, and contributed to various periodicals. In 1851 he joined the staff of Punch, to which he contributed "Essence of Parliament," and on the death of...
' The Silver Cord (1861) - MooreThomas MooreThomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
's Lalla Rookh, 69 drawings (1861) - Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
(1866) - The Mirage of Life, 1867
- Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-GlassThrough the Looking-GlassThrough the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
(1870) - Lewis Carroll's The Nursery "Alice" (1890)
Illustrated by Tenniel in collaboration:
- PollokRobert PollokRobert Pollok was a Scottish poet best known for The Course of Time, published the year of his death.Pollok was born at North Moorhouse Farm, Loganswell Renfrewshire, Scotland. Sources differ on the exact year of his birth, some giving 1789, some 1798, and some 1799...
's Course of TimeThe Course of TimeThe Course of Time is a ten-book poem in blank verse, first published in 1827. It was the last published and most famous work of Scottish poet Robert Pollok...
(1857) - Poets of the Nineteenth Century (1857)
- PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's Works (1857) - Home Affections (1858)
- Cholmondeley Pennell's Puck on Pegasus (1863)
- The Arabian Nights (1863)
- English Sacred Poetry (1864)
- Legends and Lyrics (1865)
- TupperMartin Farquhar TupperMartin Farquhar Tupper was an English writer, and poet, and the author of Proverbial Philosophy.-Early life:...
's Proverbial Philosophy - Barry Cornwall's Poems, and other books
He also contributed to Once a Week, the Art Union publications, etc.