97. Today in 1920s Turkey. Cartoonist Portraits and Profiles: Suat Nuri Bey
This caricature of Suat Nuri Bey is one of seven figures included in a group portrait published on 7 June 1923 in the journal Akbaba. The full cartoon, located below, featured a line-up of all of the magazine’s artists and became the inspiration for a mini-series based around these cartoonists, their lives, and oeuvres. The introductory post can be accessed here.
Since June we have moved sequentially from right to left, starting with Ramiz Bey and continuing on with İsmail Hakkı Bey, Ratip Tahir Bey, and most recently, Hüsamettin Haşim Bey. Cartoonists such as Ramiz and Ratip Tahir went on to have prolific careers in the arts whereas cartoonists like İsmail Hakkı and Hüsamettin Haşim seem to have receded into obscurity. Today’s artist, Suat Nuri (third from left) falls under the latter category.
According to Şefik Memiş and İbrahim Yarış’s İstanbul’un 100 Karikatüristi (Istanbul’s 100 Cartoonists), my faithful source on Turkish cartoonists, there is not much information pertaining to the life of Suat Nuri Bey. His cartoons appear in a narrow window and are rare compared to other, more active artists such as Ramiz and Ratip Tahir. Cartoons or illustrations by this artist can be found in issues of Akbaba dated between 1923 and 1924.
Türkçe:
İki bıldırcın avcısı
Herkes kendi avıyla meşgul!English:
Two quail hunters
Everyone’s busy with their own hunt!
The above cartoon constitutes one example of Suat Nuri’s work (several examples can also be found in the aforementioned source, İstanbul’un 100 Karikatüristi, p. 40). The present cartoon features two men and a woman in a landscape. On the left is a man taking aim with a gun at something in the distance. On the right is a man holding a woman and reaching for her waist. The cartoon’s humor lies in its text which identifies the men as “Two Quail Hunters” or “İki Bıldırcın Avcısı.” The joke is immediately obvious to anyone who knows that “bıldırcın” (quail) is also slang for a “plump little woman.” Thus, as the text suggests, both men are indeed engage in their own individual bird hunts.
Both the word play and the discrepancy in imagery contribute to the cartoon’s humor. While the text claims that both men are doing the same thing, the imagery tells a different story. Therefore, the text and image are inseparably joined in a symbiotic relationship as the joke depends on both forms of communication delivering only part of the story. It is the reader/viewer’s responsibility to make sense of the puzzle’s pieces.
Originally published at https://steemit.com on July 22, 2017.
