G. Cervelli Triple Portrait, Saints in Relief

G. Cervelli (fl.1910–1920): French Satirical Cartoons

This picture is one a wonderful collection of drawings by French cartoonist and artist G. Cervelli (fl.1910–1920) that we have for sale. The details of the identity of Cervelli are a mystery; what we do know is that he was an extremely talented draughtsman, and that he had a son called Lucien, to whom these drawings were dedicated. An inscription accompanying the drawings gives a location of Reyrieux, near Lyon. There is record of a Gaston Cervelli (born 1875) living at Lyon aged sixteen in the household of pharmacist Henri Deguilhem and his wife Appoline in 1891. Later, in 1906, Gaston is still living in Lyon, now with his own wife Aida and son Lucien aged five. It seems likely that this was our artist, but there are no further details of his professional life. Cervelli was clearly outside of the establishment—and the subjects of many of his drawings indicate an outsider status from which he could poke fun at the upper and lower classes alike.

Cervelli's drawings provide a fascinating commentary on social and political life around the years of World War One. His drawings expose the dangers of militarism, the hypocrisies of the Church and the pretensions of the world of the stage, as well as capturing something essential about human nature, through the depiction of babies and lowly figures—workers, vagrants, drunkards. He shows us people in all their beauty and ugliness, his satirical eye staving off the sentimental or picturesque.

Cervelli draws on a strong tradition of cartoons in French political and cultural life, where they are known as the 'Ninth Art'. His satire shows influence of the caricatural work of Honoré Daumier in the 19th century, who famously satirised France's monarchy, governing classes, bourgeoisie and justice system. After the 1830 Revolution, Daumier produced illustrations for left-wing publications, earning him a reputation as a subversive political commentator. Cervelli, like Daumier, fixes his eye on drinkers and drunkards, exploring the existential tragedy wrapped up in the convivial alcoholism of the French working classes.

Cervelli draws in black ink with a fantastic economy of line, as well as painting in a very beautiful technique in watercolour and gouache, where inked narrative emerges out of other-worldly, impressionistic atmosphere.