Pricked by the depravity of war and art’s search for answers, Alberto Martini (November 24, 1876 – November 8, 1954) drew anti-German lithographs – which were turned into postcards and sent to the Italian forces fighting the Hun in World War 1. Called Danza Macabra Europea, Martini’s postcards lampooned the enemy, turning them into grotesque and bigoted caricatures. But why Martini’s cartoons continue to hold value is not because they dished up simple propaganda for his paymasters, but that they achieve that noble goal of offending the whole of humanity. The cartoonist’s job is to seek truth and skewer prejudices of every sort. Martini savages humanity with a sharp, dirty, disgusting and ebullient wit formed by a ferocious hatred of greed, stupidity, hypocrisy, rapaciousness, barbarity, power and exploitation, saving his most potent venom for the political classes.
In today’s prudish times, they are NSFW. They really are that good.
Via: Monsters Brains
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