L’Orphéon du caricaturiste: Regards sur la pratique musicale dans les périodiques humoristiques illustrés français (1832–1930) (review)

Solange Vernois charts caricature’s parody of music in L’Orphéon du caricaturiste: regards sur la pratique musicale dans les périodiques humoristiques illustrés français (1832– 1930). Vernois’ choice of music follows the art form’s increasing role in the nineteenth and early twentieth century as a microcosm of the period, music’s diverse practices and practitioners representative of social hierarchies, stereotypes and mores. As Vernois demonstrates, music, in contrast to painting or sculpture, had the added characteristic of being simultaneously a “high” and “low” art, encompassing a growing population of professional and amateur musicians: Rossini, Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, children, women, street performers and travelling musicians. Vernois’ focus on the time period 1832–1930 corresponds to this popularization of music. The time frame also coincides with the renaissance and explosion of caricature and the illustrated press in France. Like music, caricature served as the voice of the period. From Daumier to Gill, artists used the medium to record and critique contemporary society, entertaining their audience with a visual repertoire of portraits-charges and social and familial scenes. Pairing music and caricature, Vernois maps both musical trends and the greater social attitudes and habits they embody.

Vernois’ work is divided into three sections. The first, “Le Défi de la transcendance,” features caricature’s portrayal of musical celebrities, tracing, for example, reactions to Wagner, Berlioz, the tenor Rubini, the singer Adelina Patti and the conductor Lamoureux. Section two, “La Chute d’Orphée ou la musique au quotidien,” delves into music’s prosaic side, exploring the illustrated press’s parody of piano lessons, family celebrations and noisy neighbors. The final section, “Au Diapason de l’humour: la réconciliation du matériel et du spirituel,” examines hybrid visual, verbal and/or aural genres, such as drinking songs, the café-concert and les physiologies, documenting the collaborative roles of the caricaturist and the chansonnier in the parody of music. While the focus of Vernois’ work is caricature, she supplements her visual corpus with citations from critics and specific songs, giving her readers a fuller portrait of music and its social construction. In her chapter on women and music, “La Pratique trop féminine du piano et du chant,” Vernois deftly moves from Flaubert to Marie d’Agout to period critics to the caricaturists Mars, Daumier and Bertall, referencing a long list of newspapers, as well as contemporary sources. Her analysis of caricaturists’ portrayal of professional female pianists, young girls’ musical instruction and music and marriage reveals a web of social conventions and sexual desire. For caricaturists, the piano functions as a visual and symbolic instrument for the shifting melody of gender politics in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France.

The richness of Vernois’ work stems from her extensive research and knowledge of the illustrated press, caricature and music. Commendable for its analyses of caricature’s parody of music, L’Orphéon du caricaturiste is an excellent resource for literary, music and art historians. The breadth of artists, images and newspapers cited creates a sort of mini-encyclopedia. This aspect of the work is reinforced by an annotated bibliography of periodicals that lists dates of publication, publisher, address, format and political bent. Vernois also includes a general index and an index of caricaturists, the latter of which allows readers to search and compare images by artist. As is often the case with French caricature—the plethora of images overwhelming even the best memory—viewers recall a specific caricature but cannot remember the source or perhaps the artist. Vernois’ Orphéon du caricaturiste alleviates such confusion, providing detailed and comprehensive documentation and description of the illustrated press’s parody of all things musical. Equally important, her survey is contextualized, each image examined as both an individual representation of musical practices and as part of a larger visual body of...