It's not just animals that we gift or burden with human traits. Artists have also freed vegetables from their roots, allowing them to find both love and jealously human-style. Here are examples from Amédée Varin's beautiful 1851 edition of L'Empire des légumes.
Below are additional examples of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century anthropomorphic art: One painting depicts a lovely onion wearing black leather boots , and the other shows a pear proposing marriage to his partner.
"All the sunshine of his life — and there seems to be a great store of it — he shares with all who will partake, and if he has any troubles he keeps them to himself. He is essentially a humorist, and one of the highest type. It is his mission to bring laughter into the world, and he succeeds beyond measure, and always cleanly, clearly, humanely. He reminds one of Thackeray's implied definition of humor when in description of Dickens he speaks of "that mixture of love and wit - humor, tender humor." - John Kendrick Bangs August 24, 1899
American artist Peter Sheaf Hersey Newell (March 5, 1862 – January 15, 1924) created hundreds of comical anthropomorphic illustrations during his career as a children's illustrator and author. He produced work for Harper's Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post and Judge, had his own comic strip called The Naps of Polly Sleepyhead and published his own books, including Peter Newell's Pictures and Rhymes. He also illustrated the works of Mark Twain, Steven Crane , Lewis Carrol and other authors. You can learn more about Peter Newell and see additional illustrations here.
From anthropomorphism to zoomorphism. Political cartoonist John Samuel Pughe used anthropomorphic animals in his political cartoons, but he also frequently gave politicians, countries and Greek gods the characteristics of animals. Pughe is best known for the cartoons he produced for Puck, America's first successful magazine of political satire.
You can see additional work by Pughe here.
French artist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard (13 September 1803 – 17 March 1847) is best known by his chosen pseudonym J. J. Grandville. His imaginative art has inspired generations of political cartoonists and surrealists. The images below are from Vie Privée et Publique des Animaux and Un Autre Monde .
Easter rabbit on strike? Yes. And he's ready to explore the world with a little help from Photoshop.
In the image above, I've combined an Easter rabbit isolated from an early 1900s holiday card with a painting of the Grand Canyon by Thomas Moran. And in the painting below, I've combined one of my photographs of a male Tufted Puffin with a painting that Italian Renaissance painter Raffaello Sanzio created in 1505.
If you haven't tried making a composite image, you can learn more about blending and isolating images in this video produced by Corey Barker.
If you're using art that you haven't personally created, remember that, with very rare exception, you need the permission of the copyright holder before using that work in your own adaptation. The copyright holder is usually, but not always, the artist or creator of the work. You can also choose work in the public domain.
How do you know when a work is in the public domain? Your safest course is to assume that all works are copyrighted until you can prove otherwise. This copyright chart from Cornell can help you do that, but when in doubt, stick with unaltered works published before 1923 in the USA. Your final adaptation or compilation can qualify for a derivative copyright.
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