ESSAYS

Illustrating Carnival
Remembering the Overlooked Artists Behind Early Mardi Gras
By Allison C. Meier

For more than 150 years the city of New Orleans has been known for the theatricality and
extravagance of its Mardi Gras celebrations. Allison C. Meier looks at the wonderfully ornate loat
and costume designs from Carnival's "Golden Age" and the group of New Orleans artists who
created them.
PUBLISHED
February 7, 2018

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 Spider costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of Comus,
1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

On March 6, 1889, the New York Times breathlessly reported on the recent Carnival spectacles in
New Orleans. e Krewe of Rex's pageant, themed around "Treasures of the Earth", included a

"Crystal" loat "attended by gures in gorgeous costumes and prisms by the thousand", and a
"Diamond" loat featuring "a rocky diamond dell” through which lowed “limpid streams
where nymphs sported and played with the gems”. e Krewe of Proteus, meanwhile, dazzled
with their “Hindoo Heavens” pageant, where in one scene appeared Agni “God of Fire" riding a
ram that "strides the lames, attended by the re sprites.” is opulent, and highly exoticized,
interpretation of South Asian religion concluded with a tableau where "Vishnu, under the
guise of a horse with silver wings, shatters the earth with his hoof and rises to the celestial
abode.”

e modern American Mardi Gras owes much of its bombastic revelry to this late nineteenth-
century “Golden Age” of Carnival design. From the invitations to the costumes to the hand
fans carried by spectators, artists designed entire identities for each Krewe (a group that
organizes a Carnival event). Carnival and its culminating day of festivities — Mardi Gras —
was brought to the Louisiana area by the French in the late seventeenth century. Mardi Gras as
it’s celebrated today is o ten linked to the Mistick Krewe of Comus, an Anglo-American group
which in 1857 organized a debut parade themed " e Demon Actors in Milton's Paradise Lost”.
It was a departure from previous Carnivals that were more informal and tied to the Roman
Catholic community. Following the Civil War, new Krewes emerged, each attempting to outdo
the others with increasingly elaborate wood and papier-mâché loats pulled by teams of /
 gy p p p y
horses. One year it might be Medieval legends coming to life on the streets, the next lying
monkeys of Chinese mythology terrorizing the crowds.

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 "Bayard escapes from Mount Vulcanus" by Carlotta Bonnecaze for the "Legends of the Middle Ages"
theme, Krewe of Proteus, 1888: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University —
Source (some potential restrictions on reuse).

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 "Assuri" costume design by Carlotta Bonnecaze for the "Myths and Worships of the Chinese" theme,
Krewe of Proteus, 1885: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source
(some potential restrictions on reuse).

" e city developed a Carnival aesthetic that blended popular Carnival tradition with the

artistic currents of the late nineteenth century”, writes Reid Mitchell in the 1995 book All on a
Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival. " e latter contributed largely to
Carnival's Orientalism. Carnival with its costumes, processions, tableaux, and bals masque
played to the late nineteenth-century love of fantasy, of exoticism.”

Mythology, literature, religion, and history, as well as nineteenth-century book illustration

and turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau, were remixed into an eclectic excess. Up to the early
1900s, the main Krewes were Rex, Comus, Proteus, and Momus, each with their favorite artist
collaborators. e names of these individuals are now obscure, but artists Jennie Wilde, Bror
Anders Wikstrom, Charles Briton, Carlotta Bonnecaze, and others now anonymous all
in luenced the embrace of the fantastic that endures into the present. e greatest publicly
accessible resource of their art is the Carnival Collection, part of the Louisiana Research
Collection (LaRC) at Tulane University and supported by a bequest from the late journalist
Charles L. "Pie" Dufour. In 2012, Tulane marked the completion of a two-year digitization
project that put over 5,500 loat and costume designs in the Carnival Collection online.

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 "At Home - Dancing" oat design by Carlotta Bonnecaze for the "Dumb Society" theme, Krewe of
Proteus, 1896: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some/
potential restrictions on reuse).

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 Scorpion costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of Comus,
1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

ese watercolor-and-ink drawings were intended to be ephemeral — some have visible pin
holes from being tacked on the wall by costume makers in Paris — and thus not all were saved.
Due to their delicate nature, they’re also rarely on view. rough April 1, the New Orleans
Museum of Art is exhibiting selections from the Carnival Collection in Bror Anders Wikstrom:
Bringing Fantasy to Carnival. Although his name is carved right on the frieze of the museum’s
façade, included in a litany of American art luminaries like Whistler, Audubon, and Copley, it’s
likely few visitors are familiar with the Swedish immigrant. Bringing Fantasy to Carnival

features a full set of the twenty loats he designed for the Krewe of Proteus’ 1904 “ e Alphabet”
parade, with "D for Dragon" carrying knights ghting a red, purple, and green beast, and "U
for Unicorn" featuring three one-horned white horses riding before a rainbow.

/
 "D for Dragon" oat design by Bror Anders Wikstrom for the "Alphabet" theme, Krewe of Proteus,
1904: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

"U for Unicorn" oat design by Bror Anders Wikstrom for the "Alphabet" theme, Krewe of Proteus,
1904: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).
/
Wikstrom came to New Orleans in 1883. A painter of maritime scenes, inspired by his time as
a sailor, he was an active member of the local arts community, helping to found the New
Orleans Artists Association that was in luential in the opening of the New Orleans Art
Museum in 1910. His extremely imaginative illustrations are transporting in their detail,
whether the battling tiger-lillies with actual tigers leaping from blossoms and
anthropomorphized cacti fending them o f, from the 1898 "A Trip to Wonderland”, or the full
Egyptian-style temple for the crowning of the pharaoh scene in the 1903 "Cleopatra" parade.

"Tiger-Lilies in Battle” oat design by Bror Anders Wikstrom for the "A Trip to Wonderland” theme, /
 g g y p ,
Krewe of Proteus, 1898: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source
(some potential restrictions on reuse).

"Crowning of the Pharaoh” oat design by Bror Anders Wikstrom for the "Cleopatra” theme, Krewe of
Proteus, 1903: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some/
 potential restrictions on reuse).

Of course, artists could sketch any dream they wanted, building it was another thing.
Comparing the illustrations to historic photographs online at the Louisiana Digital Library, it’s
evident there were some concessions to making a loat the horses could actually navigate
through the crowds. Yet the early parades transformed into otherworldly reveries at night,
when lambeaux carriers, a dangerous role traditionally given to black men, illuminated the
darkness with re. en the warm, quavering light of the lames gave the fabricated demons,
dragons, fairies, and gods a convincing glow.

Wikstrom started as an assistant to a fellow Swedish immigrant, Charles Briton. Briton

arrived in New Orleans in 1865, and worked for a time with lithographer Emile Boehler,
eventually devoting his artistic talents to Carnival. While he designed loats, invitations, and
all the other Krewe materials, his costumes are the most ingenious. His 1882 “Ancient Egyptian
eology” illustrations for the Krewe of Proteus morphed participants into a hieroglyphic-
adorned Horus and Anubis, and the 1873 "Missing Links" for Comus metamorphosed humans
into beetles, coral polyps, ears of corn, grasshoppers, and leeches.

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 Beetle costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of Comus,
1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

/
 Coral Polyp costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of
Comus, 1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some
potential restrictions on reuse).

/
 Corn costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of Comus,
1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

/
 Grasshopper costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of
Comus, 1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some
potential restrictions on reuse).

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 Bat costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of Comus, 1873:
Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

e full title of this 1873 parade was “Missing Links to Darwin’s Origin of Species”, and its
satire bristled against the post-Civil War changes in the South. Michael Taylor describes its
identi able characters on the Louisiana State University Special Collections site: "Ulysses S.
Grant, for example, has been crossed with a caterpillar and lounges on a leaf smoking a cigar.
General Benjamin Butler, the despised commander of the Union army in New Orleans during
the Civil War, is shown in another cartoon dining with a party of bears and hyenas." e
parade's political barbs did not go undetected, and it was ultimately blocked by police from
crossing Canal Street. Among the costume drawings that survive in the Carnival Collection is

Darwin himself as an ass, and one of a gorilla playing a banjo, a racist caricature that ridiculed
the humanity of black people at a time when Reconstruction amendments were
constitutionally a rming their rights. Within the Carnival whimsy was the use of its
sumptuousness to elevate white Southerners as “kings” and “queens”, with nery and balls
that excluded non-white participants.

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 Darwin as an ass costume designed by Charles Briton for the "Missing Links" theme, Mistick Krewe of
Comus, 1873: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source.

Signi cantly, in an era of male-dominated arts, several women were leaders in Carnival
designs. Born in Georgia, the proli c Jennie Wilde brought a lavish Art Nouveau elegancy to
her illustrations for Comus and Momus. For the 1902 Lord Byron–themed loats for Momus,
she envisioned his metaphysical poem "Manfred" with a mermaid, wai sh spirits, and the
lurking specter of death in the form of a skull; " e Prisoner of Chillon" has a lonely, bearded
man chained in a Gothic dungeon, swarmed with bats, with one giant winged mammal acting
as the eerie loat's prow.

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"The Vision of Manfred” oat design by Jennie Wilde for the "Byron” theme, Knights of Momus, 1902:
Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

"The Prisoner of Chillon” oat design by Jennie Wilde for the "Byron” theme, Knights of Momus, 1902:
Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse). /
 est ct o s o euse).

For Comus' 1911 "Familiar Quotations" she positioned couples on the "What are the wild waves
saying” loat gazing at a torrent of water from pearlescent shells; and butter lies, gargantuan
poppies, a sea serpent, and botanical forms swept in a current of foliage on “Such stu f as
dreams are made of”.

"What are the Wild Waves Saying” oat design by Jennie Wilde for the "Familiar Quotations" theme,
Mistick Krewe of Comus, 1911: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University —
Source (some potential restrictions on reuse). /
"Such Stu as Dreams are Made of” oat design by Jennie Wilde for the "Familiar Quotations" theme,
Mistick Krewe of Comus, 1911: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University —
Source (some potential restrictions on reuse).
/
In his 2001 book Mardi Gras Treasures: Costume Designs of the Golden Age Notecards, Henri
Schindler writes that Wilde was

fascinated throughout her career with the painting and literature of the symbolists
and the decadents, with the chimeras and operatic grandeur of Gustave Moreau and
Gustave Flaubert, the sensually tinted worlds of Pierre Loti, and the Babylonian
apocalypses of Jean Rochegrosse. Nurtured in this other-worldly splendor, Wilde in
turn called forth visions of exotic temples and molten clouds, bowers of gigantic lora,
and enchanted beasts.

In 1913, Wilde died at the age of 48 while on a trip to England. Her nal designs for “Tales From
Chaucer” appeared in 1914, debuting the very night she was interred in New Orleans’ Metairie
Cemetery. In addition to Wilde, there were several other women who had a major role in
Carnival art. Carlotta Bonnecaze created dazzling scenes with an air of science ction, such as
the 1886 parade “Visions of Other Worlds” for Krewe of Proteus, with lightning-wielding
extraterrestrials riding on a comet, six-armed beings wandering a Saturn covered with prickly
cacti, and a desolate moon where wizened gures seem frozen in gray craters.

/
"Comet” oat design by Carlotta Bonnecaze for the "Visions of Other Worlds" theme, Krewe of Proteus,
1886: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

/
"Saturn” oat design by Carlotta Bonnecaze for the "Visions of Other Worlds" theme, Krewe of Proteus,
1886: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some potential
restrictions on reuse).

"The Moon” oat design by Carlotta Bonnecaze for the "Visions of Other Worlds" theme, Krewe of /
 g y
Proteus, 1886: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some
potential restrictions on reuse).

Later, Ceneilla Bower Alexander decked out the Krewe of Rex with an Aurora Borealis loat in
1912 and ethereal angel costumes in 1920, and in the 1920s and ’30s, Léda Hincks Plauché
sketched feathered serpents and Don Quixote scenes for the Krewe of Proteus.

"The Feathered Serpent” oat design by Léda Hincks Plauché for the "The Fair God" theme, Krewe of
Proteus, 1926: Carnival Collection, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University — Source (some
potential restrictions on reuse). /
 p )

e Great Depression e fectively ended this period of no-expense-spared Mardi Gras, yet its
spirit of visual exuberance thrives into the twenty- rst century. e papier-mâché, wood,
paint, and maybe a few fake jewels, used to turn an ordinary person into a trickster devil or
graceful half-human, half-butter ly, and a horse-drawn cart into a wonderland, endure in the
spirit of Carnival creation. As the annual bacchanalia of parades, processions, and parties
continues in New Orleans, there are still threads to follow back to these artists who shaped
fantasies into reality.

Allison C. Meier is a Brooklyn-based writer who has contributed stories to Lapham's Quarterly, National Geographic,
the New York Times, CityLab, Wellcome Collection, and other publications on art, architecture, and history. Previously,
she was a sta writer at Hyperallergic and senior editor at Atlas Obscura. She moonlights as a cemetery tour guide.

CATEGORIES Art & Illustrations Culture & History

TAGS

best of illustration 58 best of design 44 new orleans mardi gras 2 best of essays 34 mardi gras 3

fancy dress 2 costumes 2 carnival 3

Public Domain Works

IMAGES

e Carnival Collection part of the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC)

Tulane University
Some potential restrictions on reuse
TEX

Hand Book of the Carnival Containing Mardi-Gras its Ancient and Modern Observance /
 Hand Book of the Carnival, Containing Mardi-Gras, its Ancient and Modern Observance

XTS
J. W. Madden 1874

Internet Archive

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Mardi Gras New Orleans

By Henri Schindler

Carnival artist and historian Henri Schindler o fers a stunning panorama of Mardi
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fabulous tableaux balls, Carnival royalty; Storyville and the Baby Dolls; Les
Mysterieuses, the rst female society; and African-American creations – the Zulu
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More Info and Buy

Mardi Gras Treasures: Float Designs of the Golden Age

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e introduction of the loat brought tremendous artistry to the splendid conveyances

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Culture & History 1 Oct 2014

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