ONE of the most marked features of Raemaekers’ art is his intense feeling of patriotism. He is proud of his country and of her past history, and he is resolute to be true to the fame of the Netherlands in the past and to preserve the freedom which is the heritage of her people. Another characteristic is his abhorrence of the prospect of German tyranny over his country. He hates that danger, which must ever be present to the mind of a patriotic Dutchman. It has been the pressing danger of the country for many years, and the danger increases and becomes more imminent year by year. He hates that thought, both because it would put an end to the freedom of his country and because he detests the character of Germany, and many of his cartoons express this abhorrence in the extremest form. He loathes the nature and the effects of German “Kultur.” Both these characteristics are expressed in this cartoon. The Netherlands is represented as a young Dutch girl in the national costume, a working woman wearing apron and cap and big wooden shoes. She has taken off one of the shoes, holding it ready to strike, while in a threatening attitude and with flashing eye she faces a hideous hag in dirty, slovenly attire, who represents the great enemy. The artist’s cartoons vie with one another in the ugliness which is imparted, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, to the enemy, but there is none which represents Prussia in a more detestable form than this. Prussia is a drunken woman, who is just coming out from a public-house, and is leaning against the door, hardly able to stagger on. The sign at the door is inscribed in German: “Bierhaus zur Deutschen Kultur.” Prussia shrinks back from the assault which Holland is threatening. Yet the assault is not an armed one; it is the assault of criticism and righteous indignation, as uttered in the press and through art. The crown of the empire, with the iron cross hanging from the apex, is tumbling off the head of the drunken woman. The right hand, which she holds up in deprecation, is dripping with blood. The neck of a large bottle protrudes from a pocket in her dirty and ragged apron on which the bloody mark of a child’s hand is imprinted. But with her bloodstained hand Prussia deprecates the attacks of criticism by the protest: “A real lady like me does not do such a thing”—forgetting in her drunken mind that she bears the marks of guilt on her person. She has been indulging in “Kultur” until she is in the last stage of intoxication, barely able to stand upright, and quite unable to preserve the crown of empire. Another characteristic of Raemaekers is evident: the perfect, absolute assurance of victory. There can be no question what the future will be; the issue of conflict, either in discussion or in other ways, between this stalwart young woman and the broken, drunken wretch cannot be doubted for a moment. The crown is already slipping away, and no gesture, no support, will be in time to keep it in its place. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. |