https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/shadows/ * Home * Essays * Collections * Explore * Shop * Support PDR * About * Blog Search Search The Public Domain Review [ ][View All Results] The Public Domain Review The Public Domain Review PDRSupport PDR * Essays * Collections * Explore * Shop * About * Blog * * * * * Collections / Images Charles H. Bennett's Shadows (ca. 1856) [42630550-e] "Coming events cast their shadows before", reads the caption for Charles H. Bennett's frontispiece; it shows a young child dipping into a pot of preserves as a raised hand foreshadows punishment. The twenty-two other portraits in Shadows (1856) paint human nature in strokes nearly as dark, the cleverly manipulated silhouettes revealing drunks, killjoys, gluttons, fools, and minor monsters. Christened "Cheerful Charley" by his Savage Club compatriots -- and recalled (after his early death at thirty-nine in 1867) by his fellow Punch men as "the kindlest and gentlest of our associates" -- Bennett's satirical sensibility in Shadows is relentless, even if intended as light-hearted moralism. Originally published as individual graphics for Fleet Street bookseller David Bogue's Illustrated Times, Bennett's caricatures were reprinted in a number of expanded editions, popular due to a simple and ingenious magic-lantern conceit: that the shadow thrown by a spotlit individual can reveal her inner character. Born and raised on the Covent Garden piazza, where Samuel Pepys observed the first recorded performance of a Punch & Judy show in 1662, Charles Bennett instilled his finest drawings with the antics of puppetry, bursting with frantic noise and movement in a tightly controlled space. In the title-page illustrations for his books, and in most of the more than two hundred drawings he did for periodicals, the characters spill out beyond the margins. Many of Bennett's shadow satires rely on the visual vocabulary of animals to cast shade on his subjects. A vain old woman is rendered into a self-admiring parrot; a young woman is belittled by the shadow of a "Little Duck"; a leering man projects the menacing shadow of a greedy crocodile. A gifted storyteller as well as artist, Bennett wrote a number of children's books -- The Faithless Parrot (1863), The Frog Who Would a Wooing Go (1864), The Nine Lives of a Cat (1860) -- whose animal protagonists were far more sympathetic than the humans lampooned in Shadows. More often, however, as in Fables of Aesop (1857), which pairs up animals in Victorian garb to make thinly-veiled digs at London's fashionable class, Bennett's animals are mere beasts of rhetorical burden to castigate their two-legged cousins. Below you can browse Bennett's shadows. For their equally monstrous but inkier cousins, see our post on blottograms. Text by Kevin Dann Published Oct 3, 2023 Medium * Images Theme * Animals & Beasts * Humour & Satire Style * Illustrations Epoch * 19th Century Tags victorian21physiognomy9magic lantern2 Source Source Harvard University * Harvard University logo More Harvard University content on PDR (7) Rights Underlying Work PD Worldwide Rights No Additional Rights Digital Copy * Source states they claim no rights on Rights the material * We offer this info as guidance only Download Download Right click on image, or see source for higher res version Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Illustration showing persons shadow morphed into another objectScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. If You Liked This... Hand holding envelope Get Our Newsletter Our latest content, your inbox, every fortnight Privacy Policy More Info [ ][ ] HP[ ] [Subscribe] Become a Friend of the PDRPostcardsWe rely on our annual donors to keep the project alive. Perks include receiving twice-a-year our very special themed postcard packs and getting 10% off our prints.Find Out More Prints for Your Walls Explore our selection of fine art prints, all custom made to the highest standards, framed or unframed, and shipped to your door. 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