Fashion Illustrator, Furniture Designer and Political Satirist
March 14, 2013 6:12 PM   Subscribe

Paul Iribe who d.in 1935 is best known as a fashion illustrator.
However he was also a furniture designer and a prolific political satirist. (wiki)
posted by adamvasco (7 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:22 PM on March 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


benito.strauss: "Wow."

Indeed. Seems to be a bunch of beautifully illustrated, hateful, occasionally racist right-wing propaganda. I'd trade any of my current so-called representatives for those guys.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:28 PM on March 14, 2013


Is it racist? I can't tell. I've seen some big French noses in my life, so it's not automatically anti-Semitism. From the article:
Now we come to the crux of Le Témoin’s political message ... Iribe’s political agenda, which was distinctly and perhaps myopically nationalistic. Iribe perceived France as allowing itself to be bullied by these other countries, and his nationalism took on a particular cast: less about the superiority of the French nation (its greatness, certainly), and more about the importance of its independence and strength in the face of overbearing foreign influence. ...
I'm probably not going to read it all, but I think it's a little more complicated than just hateful racism.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:39 PM on March 14, 2013


benito.strauss: "Is it racist? I can't tell. I've seen some big French noses in my life, so it's not automatically anti-Semitism. "

I was thinking more of this.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:41 PM on March 14, 2013


But in a small piece at the end of the third issue, Iribe offered his readers a close look into his political mind. In this piece, Iribe addressed several letters received from readers, calling for him to denounce the Jewish population of France as outsiders. Iribe responded in a tightly worded, unapologetic note that any man who was willing to take up arms on behalf of France was his “brother,” and as such he had no problem with Jews. This brief note of Iribe’s seems a perfect exemplar of the man’s nationalistic stance. Unsentimental and unprejudiced, his nationalism was positive rather than negative in nature. Iribe focused his energy and concern on what was good about France, rather than on what was wrong with other countries. And while he never seemed to make a sustained case for inclusion, Iribe certainly seemed to find it a waste of time to bother with exclusion. If you would fight for France, how were you not a Frenchman?

And yet, he was Coco Chanel's lover for a time, and she certainly didn't give a shit about Jews, to the point of taking Nazi lovers to save her business.
posted by padraigin at 6:53 PM on March 14, 2013


Russian is a race?
posted by Ideefixe at 6:53 PM on March 14, 2013


I was thinking more of this.

Ah, I see.

That looks like such a weird choice of ethnicity. I was almost going to guess it represented Communist China, but the date rules that out, and so does the name "Ivan". I've only seen that sparse mustache used to caricature "Mongolian", such as Genghis Khan. I know that some European thinkers put forward the convoluted claim that Russian isn't really European, but represents "Asiatic barbarianism", but I don't know the dates for that.

It's weird how you realize how specific and arbitrary the rules for racism are that you've picked up growing up in the time and place that you did, when you see how hard it is to decode any other ones.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:05 PM on March 14, 2013


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