Life — February 20, 1919 — page 27: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This Life magazine cartoon satirizes potential French political figures through exaggerated caricatures styled as classical statues and monuments. The labeled figures include M. Clemenceau (top right), Napoleon (center-bottom), Marshal Foch (bottom right), Jeanne d'Arc (center), and others. The caption "France Aroused" with the subtitle "If the Jo Davidson Manner of Modeling Should Become Popular" suggests this is mocking Jo Davidson, a famous American sculptor. The joke appears to mock Davidson's sculptural style by imagining historical French figures reimagined in his modernist manner—presenting them as absurdly distorted "monuments" to French national pride. The cartoon satirizes both Davidson's artistic approach and contemporary French nationalism during a period when France was reasserting its identity (likely WWI or interwar era).