Life, 1922-07-20 · page 3 of 36
Life — July 20, 1922 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features an "Auto da Fé" (a historical term for the public burning of heretics by the Inquisition, repurposed here as satire). The elaborate border illustration shows classical and allegorical figures surrounding a central poem attributed to "V.Z." The poem appears to be a mordant critique of artistic and cultural destruction—specifically calling for the burning of artistic achievements: "canvases," "column, arch and pinnacle," musical compositions, and other cultural works. References to "Burgundy wine" and artistic tools ("cutting tool and drinking-cup") suggest satire targeting either cultural philistinism or destructive movements. The inquisitor figure at the bottom reinforces the parallel to religious persecution. Without identifying V.Z. definitively or the specific historical moment, the page satirizes the destruction or devaluation of high art and culture, treating such destruction as equivalent to religious persecution.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AUTO’/DA’FE (Cee O feed the flames your torches lit with wonders Art has won From visions sprung from vintages whose tang is of the sun; Pile on the poems dreamers writ when dawn was in the sky, For what is born of wine at morn is only fit to die! To ashes change the images carved by the hands that knew Both cutting-tool and drinking-cup and ever loved the two; Feed to the fire the canvases whose beauty came from eyes That caught the gleam in Burgundy when purple bubbles rise! Burn column, arch and pinnacle, burn transept, altar, spire, For wine went to their rearing, and their doom must be the fire! And music? It must perish, for the master-singers ew The vine’s the soul of music, and they flourished where it grew! V. Z. Ye SSS \y IWS) comicbooks.com