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Peking Duck

First published in The Guardian, 22 August 2012.

 

I have done a couple of cartoons on Ai Weiwei and in neither is he depicted or mentioned. The Chinese government were no doubt hoping for something similar when they abducted and effectively disappeared him in 2011. For a number of years he had been using his high profile to speak out on police brutality, official corruption and human rights violations. However a huge domestic and international outcry led Beijing to realise how damaging it was to hold China’s most famous artist in detention. Released after 81 days, he was accused of tax evasion and given a fine of 15m yuan (US$1.85 million dollars). It is thought that charging him with economic crimes allowed officials room for manoeuvre, whereas they would not have felt able to drop political charges.

 

In case the references in the cartoon are unfamiliar:

With the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, Ai Weiwei designed the famous Birds Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also created Sunflower Seeds, an installation of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds, all individually sculpted and painted by Chinese craft workers. This was a commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, a portion of which the Tate subsequently purchased.

During his incarceration he was threatened with pornography charges because he had appeared naked in some of his artworks. In a show of solidarity many of his supporters posted nude pictures of themselves online.

 

I had avoided doing a cartoon on Ai Weiwei for a long time. Given the weighty issues involved, a cheap gag would have felt inappropriate. The clincher for me to finally have a go was something Ai Weiwei said in an interview. Paraphrasing, it was something like “Today, what is China known for?” The most populous country in the world, the second biggest economy in the world – it should be a leader in thought, science, artistic endeavour, etc, etc. But what is it known for? Making cheap consumer goods.” That really got to me. I have always been fascinated as to why some places, at a certain moments in time, experience a massive creative flourishing. Places like Athens, Florence, Paris, Vienna (a couple of times), Silicon Valley, etc – one thing that definitely doesn’t happen is the government clamping down hard on everything with which it disagrees.

 

A few words from him:

 

“Reflect on Bo Xilai’s case, Chen Guangcheng’s and mine. We are three very different examples: you can be a high party member or a humble fighter for rights or a recognised artist. The situations are completely different but we all have one thing in common: none of us have been dealt with through fair play, open trials and open discussion. China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm.”

 

“I’m just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I’m thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me. It gives me hope: Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. They can delay that freedom but they can’t stop it.”

 

Let’s hope he’s right.

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Horatii – Like!

First published in The Guardian, 17 September 2014

 

About 80 or 90 years after its founding in 753 BC (let’s say), Rome was at war with the neighbouring city Alba Longa, 12 miles to the southeast. With their armies lined up ready to fight, a conference was held between the two leaders. They decided to try and end the war without mass bloodshed as it was thought the Etruscans would descend on the two states if they were weakened and unable to defend themselves. It was agreed that a set of triplets from each side would instead do battle to determine the victor – the Horatii (plural for the Horatius brothers) representing Rome and the Curatii for Alba Longa. During the battle two of the Horatii were killed and the three Curatii were injured. Publius Horatius turned and fled. The three Curatii brothers gave chase but at different speeds because of their injuries. Publius Horatius then managed to pick them off one by one and thus won the day for Rome.

 

The oath-taking in Jacques-Louis David’s painting is a highly dramatic and terrifically pictorial moment, and is entirely fabricated. None of the ancient Roman authors mention such an episode. But this is often how history gets passed down. People add little bits to the story and this is what gets believed by future generations. I’m a little suspicious about the Romans and the Alba Longans both having a set of male triplets of the same age in their midst. Unless their mothers were on similar treatments at the local IVF clinic, which, to be fair, is just as likely. I made up the bit about the selfies but in a thousand years this will be what is believed to have happened. The “Selfies of the Horatii” will be the illustration they use in the history books and the debate will be about how the ancient Romans’ savvy use of social media gave them the edge over their rivals, leading directly to the creation of one of the greatest empires in history.

 

Maybe this isn’t far from the mark. I can’t tell you how many people have told me to get onto Twitter to expand my reach. Of course I want to conquer the world but I’m a bit old-fashioned – I much prefer swordplay. Keeps me fit.

 

If you like this you’ll love my new book – “Peter Duggan’s Artoons”! It’s available from the 29th of October, published by Virgin Books. A French version will be published by Flammarion in Spring 2016, with hopefully more languages to follow. You can pre-order here:

www.amazon.com (USA)

www.randomhouse.co.uk (UK)

www.amazon.co.uk (UK)

www.randomhouse.com.au (Australia)

www.randomhouse.co.nz (New Zealand)

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A Futurist vision

First published in The Guardian, 3 September 2014.

 

Now this is the way to start an art movement.

In February 1909 the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published an eleven point plan in an Italian newspaper, which called for aggression, conflict and struggle, the praise of youth, speed and technology. This was the first Futurist Manifesto. Incredibly, two weeks later, it was published in one of the most important newspapers in the world, the Parisian journal Le Figaro – ON THE FRONT PAGE! How? I’m not sure. The writing is quite intoxicating, reminiscent of the poetry of Rimbaud. It has been described, quite accurately, as “beautiful, poetic, intense and insane” It was also a complete bluff. It says “we” throughout but there was no group. Futurism existed solely in Marinetti’s head. After this coup several young, like-minded artists were drawn to his cause and the movement soon became a reality.

To get some sense of Marinetti perhaps the closest modern figure was Malcolm McLaren, except that Marinetti was more radical and more influential. He was a brilliant publicist. In those early days of mass media he was very media savvy, which was highly unusual. Among other things he realised that getting arrested was an excellent way to guarantee publicity. At one point a bunch of Futurists stood on the roof of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, hurled abuse at the people coming out from mass, while announcing, with trumpets, Futurist principles. One of many Futurist stunts.

 For more information on the very interesting birth of this movement, there is a very good article here.

 

I once had an encounter with a Futurist. For a number of years I worked at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney as a Registrar, which mainly involved looking after all the artworks in storage. I needed an assistant and interviewed this person for the position. I still have the transcript.

 

 What relevant experience do you have?

 

We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, because we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.

 

Who’s we?

 

Oh, um…I meant me. Sorry.

 

Don’t worry. It’s ok to be nervous. Just take your time. Now…How would you deal with confrontation in the workplace?

 

We want to glorify war — the world’s only hygiene — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and contempt for woman.

 

 I see……Describe a situation in which you used initiative.

 

I spun my car around with the frenzy of a dog trying to bite its tail, and there, suddenly, were two cyclists coming towards me, shaking their fists, wobbling like two equally convincing but nevertheless contradictory arguments. Their stupid swaying got in my way. What a bore! Pffah! I stopped short, and in disgust hurled myself — vlan! — head over heels in a ditch.

Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter! I savoured a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!…When I came up—torn, filthy, and stinking—from under the capsized car, I felt the white-hot iron of joy deliciously pass through my heart!

 

What do you expect to be doing in 5 years time?

 

The oldest among us are not yet thirty: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let younger and stronger men throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts—we want it to happen! They will come against us, our successors, will come from far away, from every quarter, dancing to the winged cadence of their first songs, flexing the hooked claws of predators, sniffing doglike at the academy doors the strong odour of our decaying minds, which will have already been promised to the literary catacombs.

But we won’t be there… At last they’ll find us—one winter’s night—in open country, beneath a sad roof drummed by a monotonous rain. They’ll see us crouched beside our trembling aeroplanes in the act of warming our hands at the poor little blaze that our books of today will give out when they take fire from the flight of our images.

They’ll storm around us, panting with scorn and anguish, and all of them, exasperated by our proud daring, will hurtle to kill us, driven by a hatred the more implacable the more their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us.

 

 Right. And lastly…Why do you want to work in an Art Gallery?

 

Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of bodies unknown to one another. Museums are public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Museums: absurd abattoirs of painters and sculptors ferociously slaughtering each other with color-blows and line-blows, the length of the fought-over walls! That one should make an annual pilgrimage, just as one goes to the graveyard on All Souls’ Day—that I grant. We can even imagine placing flowers once a year at the feet of the Mona Lisa! But to take our sorrows, our fragile courage and our morbid restlessness to the museum every day, that we cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?

We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

 

It hardly needs to be said – I hired him on the spot. He seemed to be energetic and forward-thinking – exactly the qualities the Gallery needed as we entered the 21st century. 

I have since moved on but I hear he still works there. I think he may even be the Director now.

 

I have a new book coming out, mysteriously titled “Peter Duggan’s Artoons”! It’s available from the 29th of October, published by Virgin Books. A French version will be published by Flammarion in Spring 2016, with hopefully more languages to follow. You can pre-order here:

www.amazon.com (USA)

www.randomhouse.co.uk (UK)

www.amazon.co.uk (UK)

www.randomhouse.com.au (Australia)

www.randomhouse.co.nz (New Zealand)

 

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Naive

First published in The Guardian, 20 August 2014

 

Naive Art, also known as Outsider or Primitive Art, is a label used to describe untrained, self-taught artists whose work is filled with awkward technical “deficiencies”. It seems weird but the most famous of these “naive” artists, Henri Rousseau, was championed by people like Picasso and Maurice Denis – some of the most intelligent and advanced artists of the late 19th and early 20th century. Why? His ambitions were completely different to the avant garde. Comically, the artist he aspired to be was the Academic painter par excellence Jean-Leon Gerome. But as he lacked all the taught skills of painting and drawing, of technically skilled “copying”, he made up simple, schematic visual equivalents. Rousseau depicted reality in an unusual, non-straightforward manner, and achieved a strange kind of beauty which was undeniable. You could say exactly the same thing of Cezanne.

 

Ironically, in the cartoon Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy is juxtaposed alongside a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, who was probably the most technically expert painter who ever lived. He is like the Kelly Slater of painting, in total mastery of every aspect of his craft. Surprisingly, Picasso loathed Rubens. His main beef was that everything in a Rubens painting, whether it be a breast, a plant, or a fold in a robe, is described in the same way – as a curve. Picasso’s comments on art are always very astute – it is a very good point. But it is only a flaw if you want to see it that way. Rubens’s art was one of dynamism, and filling his canvases with flaming S-shaped curves was the main way he achieved it. Look at any drawing Rubens made of someone else’s work; his “copy” is invariably more dynamic, more (perhaps superficially) thrilling. Picasso’s view on Rubens is as instructive on his own work as it is about Rubens. It reveals his love of opposition and contrast. It reveals why there is often something unpalatable and jarring about his work, why it sticks in your craw. If Picasso was Mondrian I’m sure he would have put a squiggle in there.

 

Well that was a digression.

 

Back to the cartoon. I was going through an art book which listed artists in alphabetical order and noticed that Rousseau and Rubens were on facing pages. The Rousseau depicted was the one in the cartoon, “The Sleeping Gypsy”. I immediately thought of Rubens’ painting The Lion Hunt and wondered what the lion-hunters in that painting would think of Rousseau’s lion sniffing around nearby (and also how anxious that lion would be). Initially I had the lion-hunters racing across the page, out of their own painting and into the Rousseau. The sniffing lion would now be in a raging battle, and the Gypsy rudely awoken by horses trampling him into the dust. How grumpy and pissed off would the Gypsy be? I really liked that idea but soon realised that not enough people would recognise the Rubens painting. If I used it I would have to show it complete. I could have done it over 2 panels, first showing both paintings (on their own pages) and then the punchline in the 2nd panel, but the paintings would have been illegibly small. The solution I eventually arrived at, a curator of Naive Art hanging a show in the most insensitive, bone-headed manner possible, gives the joke another dimension. His mode of curating is very naive (see what I did there?)

 

Just a quick word about “The Sleeping Gypsy” (I’m trying not to digress again but it is one of my favourite paintings so bugger it). As I said before, Rousseau compensated for his lack of technical ability by finding simple visual equivalents to represent reality. His main formal device was his way of painting every thing in a single straightforward fade from light to dark. If he painted a tree he would paint each leaf individually, shading it in one single fade from light to dark. Repeated over and over, this shimmering pattern, combined with his beautiful colour sense, is quite ravishing. This way of shading is fine with objects that could conceivably be represented as one simple, smooth shape, but he would get very muddled with complicated, bumpy shapes like a face. It’s funny scanning a Rousseau picture. Look at the Gypsy’s “pillow”. The vertical stripes are light at the top and get darker as they go down. The stripes along the Gypsy’s legs are also shaded separately from top to bottom, but because they are horizontal they turn into thin tubes. His hair is the same. It’s great. These repeated glowing stripes throughout the picture – lion’s mane, cloak, lute strings, hair, even his tube-y toes – create a lovely visual rhythm. The twinkling of the stars continue in the scattering of small circles of light throughout – toenails, fingernails, the tuners of the lute, the eye of the lion. This visual magic is unloaded onto a scene pregnant with possibility – threat, stillness, animal mind, human mind, curiousity, intensity, relaxation, danger, dream. This is what visual poetry looks like.

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Smarty Dali

First published in The Guardian, 6 August 2014.

 

Leons have been ponted and collapsed. Again. LMVQ!

 

Above is an ordinary statement, picked at random, from the future. Specifically 2039, twenty five years from now. I managed to get this because of my fairly rare ability to see forward in time. It’s kind of like a Google Street View in my head, but of the future. Sometimes I check out how my friends are doing. So sad.

 

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that this cartoon is based on the most famous selfie of all time, which has been retweeted more than any other image. Think about that statement. Salvador Dali died in 1989; a mere 25 years later, in 2014, the language is already incomprehensible. Selfies, retweets, camera-phones – it’s quite surreal.

 

In case you are unfamiliar with the photo, the host of the 2014 Academy Awards, Elen DeGeneres, got a few people from the front rows to be in a selfie with her. It was stacked with the A-lister “In” crowd – Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, Julia Roberts, Henry Darger; the list goes on. She immediately tweeted it and it quickly became the most retweeted photo in the history of bird noise.

 

However, due to the Future Street View in my head, I often get my time zones muddled. That may have happened here. But it is entirely appropriate Dali appears in a cartoon about selfies. A monumental narcissist, he believed in the “prideful exaltation of self’’. Dali has obviously traded in his old lobster phone for a brand new smartphone. Knowing Dali’s love of money (the poet André Breton once coined an anagram of Salvador Dali – “Avida Dollars’’. Avida means greedy) there is no way he would have opted for a pay-as-you-go plan. He would have locked himself into a 2 year contract and got the phone for free. That’s a canny money saving move on his part. He won’t make a single call – he’s been dead for 25 years! So he gets the phone for free and can take as many photos as he likes. Smart.

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Lost phone

First published in The Guardian, 23 July, 2014.

 

I bet you didn’t realise that Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone is a sexually charged object. The crustacean’s tail, where its sexual parts are located, is placed directly over the mouthpiece. Ooooo. Lobsters held erotic overtones for Dali. This seems very weird, but it is not as uncommon as you might think. Most people like lobster. However a recent Royal Commission into Fine Dining revealed that several unscrupulous Michelin starred chefs were secretly adding small quantities of eroticism to their lobster dishes. This moral decay at the heart of the food industry has leaked out even into home cooking. An unaired episode of the Great British Bake Off showed an ambitious contestant adding a full dollop of eroticism to his lobster soufflé. At the judges’ tasting Mary Berry refused to release the spoon from her mouth. Immediately sensing danger, the quick-thinking Paul Hollywood gallantly punched her in the face, locked her in a full Nelson and hung on as she descended into full-blown lasciviousness, frantically clawing at his trousers.

 

After the judges deliberations, and despite Paul Hollywood’s protestations, the contestant was put through to the next round.

 

I have no idea why Dali decided to make a telephone out of a lobster though. It’s such a crazy idea. 

That Dali. Such a surrealist. Such a luddite.

 

 

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Vanity of vanities! An exercise in banality.

First published in The Guardian, 9 July, 2014

 

It ends a bit gruesomely this one. Severed heads and limbs were just some of the studies Gericault painted in preparation for his masterpiece “The Raft of Medusa”. Andy Warhol made pictures of soup cans which also shocked people. I’m not squeamish though. I once opened a can of Campbell’s soup without gagging. You’re either born with the warrior spirit or you’re not. An attentive sub-editor asked me if the name Jenkins referred to a real artist. No. I was just after a common, unflamboyant surname. If I’d said Van Jenkins you could be sure you could be sure there’d be a poncey artist on the end of it.

 

I’m a little annoyed at myself with this one. I often like a few ideas in my cartoons, and am quite partial to a bit of a narrative, but with this one I changed my mind about some things at the last minute and made it wordier – a cardinal sin. I was so annoyed with myself that for the next couple of months I only drew single or double panel cartoons, which is probably a good thing. Or is it? if you have a strong opinion on the matter I’d love to hear it (and perhaps act on it). Is it an immediate turn-off to see a multi-panelled cartoon? Do you enjoy going a bit more in-depth with an idea or prefer a quick hit? Or do you enjoy leaving me hanging, my hand hovering in the air for a high five as you walk away, sniggering at the publicly embarrassing position you have left me in?

 

 

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Alain again – de Botton 2

First published in The Guardian, 25 June 2014.

 

I know, I know – fart jokes are an incredibly subtle form of humour and this one will have wafted over the heads of less perceptive readers. I have learnt my lesson and will dumb it down in future. I don’t want to spend my life alone in an ivory tower of uber-sophisticated humour. But don’t get me wrong – I love my tower. No matter how high property prices go I refuse to sell. It’s my dream home and to even consider selling it would be a slap in the faces of those 7,463 selfless elephants who gave their trunks. It would get a really good price though – it’s the only ivory tower in the street and I know for a fact that everyone around here is jealous. To give just one example, the postman Mr Wang breaks off a bit every time he delivers the post. I once caught him in the act; he was stuffing my doorknob into his mailbag. When I berated him for his jealousy he wailed that he was not jealous, just sterile. WTF? Maybe I should move – so many nutters around here.

 

In their book “Art as Therapy”, Alain De Botton and the philosopher John Armstrong ask the question “what is art for?” They suggest that art is a therapeutic medium that can help us with our psychological frailties. I’ve got a couple of those which would inevitably draw jail-time were they discovered but luckily I have had a good hard look at a Corot and am now a functioning member of society. I jest of course. The Corot didn’t work. It is an interesting book and it certainly promotes closer looking at various artworks from unlikely angles which is a great thing, but my hackles are automatically raised by any New Age-y guff. But hey, I’m not everyone and for some people that works. Whether some art can be therapeutic or not is completely beside the point of why I love certain artworks. I certainly never think “how can this help me lead a better life?” when I look at a painting. Actually, it is probably a question of mental habits. I suspect that whatever De Botton looks at, not just art but anything, he is thinking about it in terms of how it could be reframed as a therapeutic tool. I just don’t think like that. When I look at something the questions and observations I make are completely different (potentially jailable). In fact, he either misses or intentionally ignores the central point of why art is sometimes overwhelmingly great – that visual music, with resonances and references tying together in beautiful and unexpected ways. As worthy as de Botton’s way of thinking may be, and he certainly thinks it is THE most worthy way (hence his confidence in wading into so many different areas, e.g. literature, philosophy, class, media, art, etc), I certainly don’t believe it is a more rewarding way of viewing art than my own, which has been the source of great pleasure. I welcome and enjoy his take on things but I suspect it is his belief that this is the best way, the proper way, of thinking about art that grates with some people – especially, it seems, with artists and critics, i.e. those who take profound pleasure in art but with completely different mental processes.

 

All part of life’s rich blanket I guess.

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Catchy Title

First published in The Guardian, 11 June 2014

The Inquisition was a Catholic Church body with the purpose suppressing heresy. But did you know it still exists? Its current name is Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was founded in 1229 to combat the Cathars, otherwise known as the Albigensians – a mass heretical sect which had sprung up in southern France. The Albigensians were renowned for their piety; they preached poverty, chastity and modesty. Researching the topic for an essay in art school I came across the unintentionally funny testimony of a certain John the Miller:

 “I am not an Albigensian. I lie and cheat and swear just like any other good Catholic.”

History does not record the fate of John the Miller.

 A few hundred years later, in 1573, the great Venetian painter Paulo Veronese was hauled into the dock. He had aroused the ire of the Inquistion by painting a gigantic and extremely lively Last Supper with a ton of people in it. Check it out here. The Inquisition objected to the inclusion of jesters, dwarfs, a man picking his teeth with a fork, and a servant with an unexplained nosebleed. Particularly objectionable was Veronese’s inclusion of drunken German soldiers because at the time the Catholic Church was combatting the Protestant Revolution from the north. They ordered him to change the offensive figures within 3 months. In a ballsy move, Veronese merely changed the title to Feast in the House of Levi. He got away with it. The painting now depicts a banquet held by a man called Levi, mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, which was full of tax collectors and other sinners. Jesus himself copped a bit of flak for going.

“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

And Jesus answered, saying unto them “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” *

 

*  I am pretty sure this is what he said. It was hard to tell because he had a mouth full of quail eggs at the time. – Luke

 

I have always loved Albrecht Altdorfer’s stuff – those overly leafy trees and the almost nutty way he pushes differences of scale. I like him even more now. Coming at art from the angle of cartooning can deliver some unexpected insights. For example, I have sometimes searched for particular subject matter in the history of painting, as part of a potential punchline, and been surprised to find that it has never been painted. I am tempted to do a series of paintings to plug these unexpected gaps (what a show!). In the case of this cartoon I wanted to find a martyrdom picture (plenty of those) that could feasibly pass as buck’s night or bachelor party going a bit overboard. Nothing too gruesome but something with a bunch of blokes who could conceivably look like they were having fun rather than just a bunch of psychotic, bloodthirsty maniacs. Altdorfer’s “The Martyrdom of St Florian” was one of the very few that fit the bill. But as the painting was to appear as just a small part of a small cartoon I was worried that the detail would be unintelligible. Not so – it is graphically extremely clear. Look at the dark bridge with its pillars, the clear line of people, the bright saint and his weight standing out from the crowd – everything, including the clouds, is designed for immediate impact. Nothing messy or confusing. it has made me appreciate just how good Altdorfer was at organising his compositions.

It goes without saying that Veronese was a terrific painter. The recent exhibition at the National Gallery in London was a knockout. A ludicrously talented guy.


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Alain de Botton

First published in The Guardian, 28 May, 2014.

 

Alain de Botton is a mix of philosopher and self-help guru. A clever, busy guy, he has written books like “How Proust Can Change Your Life”, “The Consolations of Philosophy” and ‘Status Anxiety”; made TV shows based on his books and is a founder of The School of Life, an institution which aims to “offer instruction on how to lead a fulfilled life”.  I have been struck by the strength of anti Alain de Botton feeling a number of readers have expressed to me. If you’re pretty happy with your life I guess you might be liable to find someone telling you there’s a better way to lead it really annoying. I’m full of self-loathing so I’m not bothered. 

 
However he has written a book called “Art As Therapy” which offers an alternative way of viewing art. Alternative ways of viewing art is exactly what I spend my time trying to think up, so the book was perfect grist for my comic mill. The painting in the cartoon, The Laughing Cavalier, is one of the most annoying paintings in the world. The guy is not laughing; his mouth isn’t even open! Unless he was an admired ventriloquist the title is completely misleading. Apparently he is not even a cavalier. A more fitting title would be “A Complete Hypocrite”. In my cartoon De Botton follows his own advice to the letter – so you can’t accuse him of that.