Art Spiegelman
Drawing for Maus II
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Drawing for Maus II, c.1988-89 Ink on paper Despite the comic format, Spiegelman manages to convey the terror of the events his parents went through and survived. |
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Drawing for Maus II, c.1988-89 Ink on paper Note that Spiegelman is also providing the reader with factual information: his father's Auschwitz number, the problem of inadequate clothing, the brutality of the camps. |
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Drawing for Maus II, page 24, 1988-89 Ink on paper 9 1/4 x 6 1/2 |
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Full view. |
About the Artist
Spiegelman is an artist and writer who chose to approach the story of his parents through cartoon and CD-ROM. Is this art or literature? Spiegelman's Maus won a Pulitzer Prize.
Artist Statement
"Maus grew out of a comic strip I did in 1971 for an underground comic book: a three-page strip that was based on stories of my father's and mother's that I recalled being told in childhood... In 1977 I decided to do [a] longer work, [and] I set up an arrangement to see my father more often and talk to him about his experiences... Although I set about... to do a history of sorts, I'm all too aware that ultimately what I'm creating is a realistic fiction. The experiences my father actually went through [are not exactly the same as] what he's able to remember and what he's able to articulate of these experiences. Then there's what I'm able to understand of what he articulated, and what I'm able to put down on paper. And then of course there's what the reader can make of that... It's important to me that Maus is done in comic strip form, because it's what I'm most comfortable shaping and working with. Maus for me in part is a way of telling my parents' life and therefore coming to terms with it... It's not a matter of choice in the sense that I don't feel I could deal with this material as prose, or as a series of paintings, or as a film, or as poetry... In looking at other art and literature that's been shaped from the Holocaust--a historic term I find problematic--that material is often very high pitched... I feel a need for a more subdued approach, which would incorporate distancing devices like using these animal mask faces. Another aspect of the way I've chosen to use this material is that I've entered myself into the story. So the way the story got told and who the story was told to is as important [as] my father's narrative. To me that's at the heart of the work. --From Oral History, Journal. Spring 1987
Teaching Applications
Questions:
- Is the cartoon a legitimiate way to convey the history of the Holocaust?
- Is Maus a book about art or literature?
- Is there anything wrong with portraying Jews as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs and Americans as dogs? What do these animal images usually signify?
- Do the drawings reflect some research about the camps and the process of the Holocaust?