“He’s a real newspaper man!” Those words probably bring to mind an inveterate reporter for some city’s daily paper, or perhaps an illustrious publishing magnate. But how about a man literally made out of newspapers? Strange as it may sound, there’s actually a long and varied history of people made out of newspapers in art, literature, music and film. The personification of newspapers has often served as a form of social commentary, as a way of conjuring a dreamlike (even hallucinatory) state, or simply as striking visual punctuation in a movie, book or street scene.
Perhaps the most elaborate and compelling example is the famous “Paper Dance” scene from the 1948 movie The Red Shoes. In the eponymous ballet-within-a-film, Moira Shearer encounters a newspaper blowing in the wind which then metamorphoses into a man (played by Robert Helpmann) with whom she dances. His clothes appear to be made from torn sheets of newsprint while his face is covered with text, including the banner of the French newspaper Le Journal emblazoned across his forehead.
Many painters and illustrators have depicted newspapers in human form. In 1925, for example, collagist Arthur Dove created a painting in which an image of “The Critic” is literally fashioned out of newspaper pages affixed to the canvas. Excellent reproductions are available in Arthur Dove: A Retrospective and The Newspaper in Art. The first edition of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic novel about book-burning, Fahrenheit 451, was graced by the striking image of a man made out of newspapers, on fire. This 1953 illustration (by artist Joseph Mugnaini) reappeared on later commemorative editions of the book.
In the 21st century, the personification of newspapers has gone global and entered the digital realm: a proliferation of images on Flickr, YouTube, blogs and other websites are blurring the boundaries between human and newspaper in photography, sculpture and performance art. Romanian artist Anton Octavian reprises the iconic image of a burning newspaper person—one of the few examples of a literal “newspaper woman.” Honolulu has its own “newspaper man” street performer, videos of whom can be found on YouTube. And artist Troy Mariyanayagam photographed a startling newspaper figure crossing a bridge in London.
People have a natural tendency to imbue inanimate objects with human qualities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the imaginative and haunting figure of the “newspaper person.” For more than a century, newspapers have been dancing, fighting, walking, posing and even sitting down and reading other newspapers! To see more examples, come visit the new display “Newspapers, Personified” on Level 6 of the Central Library… and of course you can always visit any branch of The Seattle Public Library to read some actual newspapers.
~Michael, Central Library
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