prior probability

Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” has also captured the imagination of marine-scientist-turned-wildlife-artist Guy Harvey. (Dr. Harvey received a doctoral degree in marine biology from the University of the West Indies; here is a brief bio of his life and work.) For his first art exhibition, held in Jamaica in 1985, Dr. Harvey created a series of 44 original pen and ink drawings of Hemingway’s story, including the illustration pictured below. Based on the positive reviews he received at his first art show, Dr. Harvey decided to devote himself to painting full time. Later, in 2001, he published Santiago’s Finest Hour (available here via Amazon), a compilation of 59 pen and ink drawings of the Cuban fisherman’s heroic ordeal as recounted in Hemingway’s novella. (You can see more of Dr. Harvey’s original set of “old man and the sea” paintings here.)

Hemingway’s fisherman story has also been the subject of political cartoonists, including Edmund S. Valtman (b. 1914; d. 2005), a cartoonist for The Hartford Times from 1951 to 1975 who had won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. This political cartoon by Ed Valtman, for example, shows Senator George McGovern as a fisherman in a small boat with the remains of a large fish, with the words “War Issue,” lashed to its side, battling against high seas. His cartoon (pictured below) alludes to Hemingway’s story of an old Cuban fisherman who catches a giant marlin. Despite the fisherman’s efforts, most of the marlin is eaten by sharks before the fisherman is able return to port with little more than the skeleton of his prize. The cartoon is dated October 31, 1972, just a few days before the 1972 presidential elections. During the 1972 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, tried to make Nixon’s involvement in the Vietnam War a central issue. McGovern’s campaign, however, was undermined by a series of tribulations that included attacks on his inconsistent stands on many issues and the revelation that his vice presidential running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had been hospitalized on two occasions for psychiatric reasons. McGovern subsequently lost by a large margin to Nixon. More details here, via the Library of Congress.

The art collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City includes a sketch circa 1958 by Leonard Baskin (b. 1922; d. 2000) for Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea.” Baskin’s drawing (pictured below) depicts Santiago’s noble nemesis, the giant marlin, but the size of the sketch itself is small: just 7¾ by 10¾ inches. (The Whitney obtained this sketch illustration through the Charles Simon Bequest.)

Following the initial publication of “The Old Man and the Sea” in the September 1, 1952 edition of Life magazine, an illustrated version of Hemingway’s novella appeared in 1953. This illustrated book was published by the Reprint Society (22 Golden Square, London) and contains 34 black-and-white drawings by two British artists: Raymond Sheppard and C. F. Tunnicliffe. (Sheppard drew 18 of the illustrations, while Tunnicliffe drew 16 of them.) According to a publisher’s note in the original 1953 Reprint Society edition, the publisher had hired Sheppard and Tunnicliffe as competing commissions: “Originally commissioned as alternatives, these two artists’ different interpretations of the story were considered so excellent and so interesting in their varying styles that both have been included.” The cover art pictured below was created by C. F. Tunnicliffe:

Below is one of the many illustrations for “The Old Man and the Sea” by Raymond Sheppard:

More details are available here via Norman Boyd.

As we noted in our previous post, Ernest Hemingway’s masterpiece “The Old Man and the Sea” has been visualized by artists all over the world in a wide variety of media. To begin with, the initial publication of Hemingway’s novella in Life magazine was illustrated by Noel Douglas Sickles, a North American cartoonist and illustrator who created 18 two-tone drawings for Hemingway’s novella based on photos shot by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Here is a comprehensive listing of Noel Sickles’s drawings—all page references are to the September 1, 1952 edition of Life:

• Santiago and Manolin walking toward the shore (pp. 36-37) (pictured below)
• Santiago dreaming of lions (p. 38)
• A bird flying through the sky (p. 39)
• Santiago aboard the skiff (p. 40)
• Three flying fish (p. 41)
• A small bird perched on Santiago’s fishing line (p. 42)
• Santiago and the great marlin (p. 43)
• Arm wrestling flashback (p. 44)
• Two fish (p. 45)
• A close-up of Santiago’s hands (pp. 46-47)
• A close-up of Santiago’s harpoon (p. 48)
• Santiago battling the great marlin (p. 49)
• The first shark (p. 50)
• Santiago battling the sharks (p. 51)
• A close-up of the point of Santiago’s spear (p. 51)
• Two sharks (p. 52)
• The carcass of Santiago’s marlin (p. 53)
• Santiago carrying the mast of his skiff on his back (p. 54)

In short, Hemingway used words to tell his fable of the old Cuban fisherman and his heroic ordeal, but his timeless story can also be told in pictures. We shall see many more visualizations of the characters, scenes, and events in Hemingway’s novella in our next few posts.

The Old Man and the Sea is not only the last major piece of literary fiction by Ernest Hemingway that was published during his lifetime; it’s also one of the most famous and best-selling works of North American literature of all time. Moreover, beginning with the original publication of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea in the September 1, 1952 edition of Life magazine (pictured below), many of the characters, scenes, and events in Hemingway’s novella has been illustrated by a wide variety of artists in a wide variety of media over the years. Stay tuned: my next few blog posts will survey a subset or sampling of these various visualizations of The Old Man and the Sea in chronological order.

After all, the perpetual conflict between India and Pakistan over the greater Kashmir area goes back to 1947. Also, check out this report, dated 8 July 2012, published in The Economist: Continue reading →

Did you know that the great North American activist, author, and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois was also a pioneer in the field of data visualization? Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Britt Rusert have collected Du Bois’s beautiful data portraits, including the one pictured below, in their new book W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America. (Hat tip: kottke.)

Bayesian Update (6 June 2019): I have changed the title of this blog post to reflect a more likely explanation for the pattern of price changes pictured below. For more information about William Baumol and the so-called “Baumol effect”, see here.

Economics professor Mark Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) recently posted an updated chart (pictured above) of price changes of certain consumer goods and services in the U.S. In summary, his chart shows falling prices for free-market goods like TV sets and toys as well as rising prices for such publicly-subsidized services as health care and higher education.

In case you are visiting from another planet, “Make America Great Again” (#MAGA) was one of Donald J. Trump’s slogans during the 2016 presidential campaign, while “Black Lives Matter” (#BLM) refers to a grassroots movement in support of people of color. Yet for some strange reason, many heavy-handed judges and school administrators want to ban these expressive articles of clothing from their courthouses and schools. Geesh! Whatever happened to the live-and-let-live rule?