MR.RAEMAEKERS'S CARTOON HISTORY OF THE WAR.* "I, TOO, have been
an explorer, gentlemen. I have explored a hell, and it was terror unspeakable." Thus spoke Mr. Rae- markers to a gathering in London who were doing him honour, and we are all familiar with his exploration. In the Preface to the present volume Mr. Allison states that the early cartoons of the Belgian martyrdom were the results of personal observation made before the official inquiries showed the world the true nature of the German wild beast. We are told that up till August, 1914, the artist was "a quiet gentleman, the son of a country editor, happy in his family, devout, con- templative, loving beauty and peace, contentedly painting the good and lovely things he saw among the tulip-fields and water- ways, the cattle and the windmills of his own native Holland." Then came the invasion of Belgium, with refugees bringing stories of unheard-of barbarity. " Raemaekers, like the rest of the humane world, refused to credit them. His mother was a German; he had spent many happy years in Germany." But the stories persisted, and he became an explorer in the stricken country, with the results we all know. Then followed the persecution—the German Government offered twelve thousand guilders for his body, dead or alive, and they induced the sub- servient Dutch Government to prosecute him for endangering the neutrality of Holland. Fortunately the jury was less slavish than the Government and acquitted him, and hence- forth the lava-stream of denunciation flowed unchecked, although the artist was in peril at the hands of German agents.
Among the most remarkable features of the art of Mr. Raemaekers is its universality ; it appeals to all nations alike with a great primitive force. Too often the work of the cartoonist depends almost entirely for its effect on the inscription beneath thepicture, and the public constantlythink the drawing eloquent because of a witty legend. This is not the case with Mr. Raemaekers. To begin with, he is a consummate technician who can express whatever he wants to by means of a perfectly accomplished art. It matters not whether he chooses an incisive line, as we see in the drawing of the Kaiser as Moses IL leading his band through the Channel ; or the rough crumbling touch, explosive in its vehemence, of " Men to the right, women to the left " ; or the effective use of masses of black in Tirpitz the fox preaching to the Dutch geese. All methods seem equally at the master's command; and he uses them all to make manifest his burning emotion or scathing satire. As an example of the latter quality nothing could be more astonishing than the very slight drawing of the two German sailors; in them the whole meanness, brutality, and impotence of the German Navy are summed up. If we try to realize the secret of the power of these wonderful drawings, poured out by the artist, of which the volume we are reviewing only represents the work of the first year of the war, we recognize that Mr. Raemaekers has the strength ol great primitive art, for he can fuse into one 1,1ae along and artistic emotions. In the early days of the yr& .00e lalle profoundly thankful to the moralist who comameo us the righteousness of our cause.
Vol. " The First Twelve Koala of War." Loses; J0014.140. (lb. lieleti • ltarniarlrnes Cartoon History of the War. e piled Li, 7.
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