Drawings from the Museu Nacional. Sparks of the War (1914

08/10/2025

11/01/2026

Curator:

Francesc Quílez

Location:

Sala Temporal 1

0The Agell Collection

The majority of this selection belongs to the collection created by Catalan journalist and businessman Miquel Agell, acquired by the museum in 1963. The complete Agell Collection comprises over 17,000 drawings that reflect the work of illustrator-artists – or ninotaires – for two of the most widely read and long-standing Catalan satirical publications of all time: La Campana de Gràcia (1870–1934) and L’Esquella de la Torratxa (1872–1938).

The collection includes works by nearly twenty artists, with a particular focus on the World War I, although it also contains references to earlier and later periods. Two primary subjects of the cartoons are the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler. The artists turned these figures into laughing stocks in an effort to diminish the widespread social fear they fomented in their time. Both personalities have since become part of our collective imagination.

1The Image of Adolf Hitler and Nazism

Mass media culture played a significant role in popularising the image of Adolf Hitler, who became one of the most recognisable faces in 20^th-century history. Despite being an acknowledged genocidal figure and central to one of the darkest chapters in human history, efforts to portray him as a despot did not prevent his image from gaining huge traction. Even in his own time, he became one of the most frequently depicted figures by artists.

The illustrators make no attempt to hide their animosity towards a man they depict as a heartless, amoral caricature. In doing so, they risk fulfilling the prophecy outlined by philosopher Hannah Arendt, unintentionally contributing to the banalisation of evil and its chief perpetrator. In this sense, all the cartoonists anticipate a question that remains profoundly relevant today: whether humour should or should not cross certain boundaries, and to what extent it is legitimate to turn a tyrant, responsible for the deaths of so many, into one of the most iconic figures of the 20^th century.

2Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany

Wilhelm II of Germany, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, was one of the most frequently illustrated figures in the period leading up to and during the Great War. Many of the cartoons exploit the kaiser’s most caricaturable facial features, portraying him as a man driven by an insatiable lust for power who pursued a policy of territorial expansion and led the German offensive.

However, most depictions turn him into a grotesque figure. He became an easy target for artists eager to ridicule both his affected manner, emphasised through his heavily waxed moustache, and his militaristic behaviour, conveyed through the Prussian officer’s uniform and spiked steel helmet.

3The Great War

Unlike previous military conflicts, the Great War was marked on the one hand by its vast geographical scope and, on the other, by an immense death toll of around 10 million people. These factors had a profound emotional impact on the global population.

Paradoxically, the outbreak of war sparked a sense of enthusiasm among many European artists. They did not hesitate to join the front lines and adopted a militant, avant-garde stance against everything the old social order represented. For many intellectuals and creatives, the war became the most effective means of burying the old world and ushering in the new.

Spain’s neutrality did not prevent Catalan illustrators from openly taking sides, supporting the Allied cause and expressing their opposition to the threat posed by German expansionism.

4The Disasters of War

For the European public, the Great War gave rise to a widespread sense that they were experiencing a colossal catastrophe with unforeseen consequences. In the popular imagination, the conflict increasingly came to resemble the prophecy of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. Blasco Ibáñez’s novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916), set in 1914, captured the atmosphere of desolation and trauma that gripped a Europe shaken by the nightmare of war.

Adding to the enormous number of war deaths – both military and civilian – was the extremely high mortality caused by episodes of famine and the spread of epidemics such as influenza. The emotional toll was further deepened by the vast number of wounded, mutilated or disfigured, whether by weapons, bombs or gas attacks. They became some of the most tragic and familiar images of the period.

5Memento mori (‘Remember you must die’)

The spectre of Death overshadowed the European landscape and became one of the most iconic images of the Great War. The illustrators make open reference to iconography rooted in the Baroque tradition, but strip it of the religious connotations. In Catholic culture, it was typical to evoke meditations on death through the phrase memento mori, the Latin expression that reminds us of the fragility of the human condition.

While the artists featured here use this visual motif as a powerful persuasive device, it is from a different perspective. They adopt a certain irreverent attitude which uses irony and satire to break with the macabre symbolism. It is an approach that helps to de-dramatise the cruelty of death as one of war’s great victors, and makes it possible to laugh at death and at those who keep watch over it.

Drawings from the Museu Nacional. Sparks of the War (1914–1918)

Dibuixos del Museu Nacional. Espurnes de la guerra (1914-1918) [1]