Postcard of the Day No. 114, Snake Handling

An adoring group of female admirers have gathered to pay homage to the courage and skill of the neighbourhood snake handler.  Look closer and all may not be as it seems - even though one of the group has fallen to her knees in homage, their expressions suggest they are less impressed and have sensed the defensive air of insecurity on the part of the snake handler.  A lack of confidence can be read in his facial tension and his audience appear to be close to dissolving into scornful mirth.  The stereotypical imagery falls clearly under the umbrella of Orientalism in its dependence on the exotic. I have another postcard of an Egyptian snake charmer that looks suspiciously like the same person - even the serpents look the same.  Other examples are from Myanmar, India and Sri Lanka. Closer to home is the demonic grin of Henry Brusher Mills (1840-1905), celebrity snake catcher of the New Forest, pictured here with a fistful of writhing specimens. Charming was not part of his act. Armed with a forked stick he offered his services to anxious homeowners and it has been calculated he caught over 30,000 snakes in his lifetime - some of which were rendered down to create various dubious potions, others were boiled to reveal their skeletons for sale to tourists. In a rare interlude when not snake bothering, he lit up a pipe and sat for his portrait - the result can be seen here. After his death in 1905 he was buried beneath a rather handsome headstone in the churchyard at Brockenhurst, where you can now take a drink at the Snakecatcher pub.

 

More Tea From Lipton’s

Following up a post from July 2007 - more examples of postcards publicising the availability of Lipton’s Tea.  Lipton made full use of traditional iconography of imperialism - a team of Indian elephants advancing to market escorted by exotic turbaned outriders. Lipton’s plantations in India and Ceylon formed an empire within an empire with a workforce of tens of thousands toiling in the fields and factories to ensure the British public was supplied with all the consolations of a nice cup of tea.  Tea drinking became embedded in the soul of Victorian Britain and to meet the ever increasing consumer demand the industry mechanised the processing and packaging to cut costs while promoting a branded product with forceful advertising campaigns.  Picking the tea was done by hand and Lipton’s took pride in offering visual proof of the scale of their operations.  Enormous crowds of anonymous labourers were rounded up in front of the camera - some were deployed in formation to spell out the hallowed name of Lipton. The British obsession with tea came at a heavy cost to the environment as vast areas of forest in the Nigiris and Assam were scoured to make space for tea cultivation, destroying the indigenous wildlife in the process.  The human cost could be seen in the deplorable working conditions and starvation wages paid to the native workforce. Throughout the Victorian era and into the 1930s, virtually all the tea production  was exported to Britain. Only when the price of tea slumped on international markets did it occur to British producers that there was an Indian market ready and waiting on the doorstep.  Which explains how tea drinking became an Indian obsession every bit as compulsive as that of the British. (Inglorious Empire: Shashi Tharoor)

 

Cotton Cultivation in pictures

Another set of 6 Liebig collectors’ cards – this time from 1909. Six panels describe the process beginning with the planting of seeds. In India, a plough is employed while in Africa, the ground is broken by a work gang of teenagers. Harvesting takes place in America’s Deep South and the crop is delivered to a Cotton Gin where the seeds and detritus are removed. Baling and weighing is next in the process before the finished bales are delivered to the waterfront on a horse drawn wagon to be loaded on to a steamship on the next stage of the journey. It’s a familiar subject for cards of this type – a simplified description of a staple product in a complex process that takes us behind the scenes to see what’s otherwise concealed. The distribution of tasks follows ethnic lines – Europeans get involved when machinery is required but all the hard labour is left to people of colour. It’s a sanitised version of a brutal reality. The working atmosphere is genially relaxed. An air of contentment prevails. No coercion, no armed overseers calling for more effort, no flogging of the indolent or disobedient. The illustrations possess a period charm but their studied avoidance of harsh economic realities was repeated in children’s books and annuals, in films and educational materials until relatively recently. Which is one reason why it’s so easy to find people today who believe that colonialism was basically a benevolent enterprise with a few isolated instances of cruelty and injustice.

Indian Graphics

Above are some Visit India poster designs featured in an advertising insert in Commercial Art magazine for June 1929 (Vol 6, No 36). On the reverse is a quartet of designs for well known European consumer products presented in an Asian context. It’s impossible to be certain (at this scale) but the hand of William Spencer Bagdatopoulos (WSB) (1888-1965) may be detected here. WSB was the master when it came to applying an Asian flavour and chromatic brilliance to unglamorous Western products – something we examined in a post dated March 2010. More background information has emerged in online sources – follow this link for a brief biography. It’s interesting to discover his Anglo-Greek parentage – in my ignorance I had convinced myself that he was of Indian origin and had invented this exotic name to advance his career.

W S Bagdatopoulos

William Spencer Bagdatopoulos (WSB) is the unsung hero of early Indian advertising illustration. In his hands, the familiar stodgy universe of home and colonial consumerism was transformed into vibrantly hued oriental exotica. The editorial pages of the Times of India Annual regularly featured his work in the 1930s of which the image of the Ganges he produced for Burmah-Shell to publicise a distinctly toxic sounding range of products, was typical. Commercial assignments inspired him to employ local colour in the form of harems, Hindu Gods and processions of gilded elephants to scatter lustre on some fairly mundane products. The magazine extract is from Commercial Art, May 1929 and shows three examples of calendars designed by WSB, sadly in monochrome only. The text is predictably pompous and patronising and tells us nothing about the artist. Hopefully, more examples of his visually sumptuous work will come to light in future.

Coming, Sahib!

The disembodied brown hand of a native bearer enters the room through a Vorticist explosion of colour, gripping a brass tray laden with tall glasses, a crystal jug and a package of Horlick’s Malted Milk. All the way from Slough to refresh the hard pressed colonial administrator. It can even be mixed with brandy or sherry to make a “drink for the gods”.

Today, we examine the advertiser’s response to the challenge of advertising in India. Some of these examples address the realities of colonial life with explicit reference to the master-servant relationship. The ever attentive servant hovers in the background, almost unseen, ready to perform his duties with perfect self-effacement. The mem-sahib can relax in the knowledge that every household chore will be carried out with discretion and efficiency, leaving plenty of time for leafing through the pages of the Times of India Annual and dream of luxuries like a fashionable watch or a ciné camera. Many of the finest and most reassuring brand names from home can be found there. Peek Frean and Jacob’s biscuits, the perfect accompaniment to Brooke Bond Tea, Horlicks, Wincarnis and Eno’s Fruit Salts to calm the nerves, Pears’ Glycerine Soap for a matchless complexion and Wright’s Coal Tar Soap for well scrubbed children, Odol and Kolynos for gleaming teeth. All the comforts of home for the wives and daughters of the officer class.

One successful artist, possibly of Indian origin whose work features in both advertising and editorial illustration (including the covers) is William Spencer Bagdatopulos (born 1888). His signature appears on the two more exotic adverts for Pears’ and the Valet Auto Strop Safety Razor. The Pears’ image evokes a dreamy sensuality with a sultry foursome in provocative mood. The peacock in the background is the main player in the Valet advert with a severe, unsmiling androgynous creature mounted on its back. The Hindu God, Skanda is sometimes depicted mounted on Parvani the Peacock. Perhaps there is a connection with the world of wet shaving. Follow this link to see some poster designs by Bagdatopulos promoting India as a tourist destination.

Going Home

More advertising from the Raj, with the focus on transport and communications. These sectors were more likely than any other to play up the image of the exotic sub-continent and these examples are typical with their hot colours and deep shadows. The great steamship lines represented the vital link with the mother country for the exhausted colonial master wearily casting a nostalgic backward glance to the freezing fog and drizzle of the green hills of home. And, with the assistance of Callender’s finest cables there are telegrams to dispatch and even the possibility of a brief telephone conversation with loved ones at home.

Post-Imperial Advertising

Today’s images are, with th exception of the Ovaltine ad in monochrome, from Times of India Annuals of the 1950’s. They reflect the post-colonial realities and for the first time, the indigenous consumer takes priority. It’s interesting to note how Ovaltine progressed from a convalescent drink designed to bring relief to the weary colonial administrator, enervated by the exigencies of life in the tropics, to a soothing bedtime drink for the hard working Indian populace. The cosmetic products on offer hint at an Asian sensuality, especially in the case of Afghan Snow where a decidedly risqué image was deployed. There is irony in the repeated use of the word ‘discrimination’ given that the same word defined political discourse in Britain around the subject of racism in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

More Imperial Advertising

This is a follow-up to a posting on August 18th. last year. These images are from Times of India Annuals of the 1930’s. The products on offer reflect the concerns of the colonial consumer with an emphasis on personal grooming, refrigeration and gardening. Many products are indigenous but some are imported and although, as will be shown in later postings, some advertisers adapted their UK marketing techniques to appeal to both coloniser and the colonised, there were many others who simply reproduced their UK campaigns with minimal revision. What we see here is the blueprint for the comfortable colonial life complete with obedient smiling servants. Plus a cut-out and keep ad for use in the event that you should become a crack marksman in the art of tiger shooting.

Imperial Advertising

The images above show contrasting views of India as an exotic visitor destination as visualised in the advertising pages of the Illustrated London News in 1935. On the left are the savage but majestic symbols of wildlife in abundance while to the right the image of the bustling city is celebrated with turbans and veils, triumphal arches and minarets all portrayed in the hot colours of our wildest tropical imaginings. The examples below are a sample of the visual treats to be discovered in the Times of India Annuals. They are a wonderful source of material on the early development of a consumer culture in a colonial context featuring advertising aimed at the indigenous population as well as the occupying power. The artwork for ‘Every Day Can Be Xmas Day’ has a beguiling handmade quality with a profusion of fonts and a jumble of upper and lower cases and comes complete with spelling errors (Greyere and Chadder cheese)! The Bright Star flashlight is clearly a vital piece of equipment for the alert Boy Scout when it comes to exposing episodes of immoral behaviour. The young lady wears no wedding ring and the young man has a lecherous air about him that does not support a reading that they are about to be rescued. There will be more from the Times of India Annuals in future postings.