The Circus, in My Collage for LMAC #169

Circus. It's a word with a long and complex history. When I saw Hive account@shaka's template photo this week in the LMAC collage contest, the graffiti struck me. The free flow of imagination evident brought circuses to mind.

The Template Photo by Hive account@shaka

I read a little bit about the history of circuses. Many of us recognize the term 'Bread and Circus', which refers to a custom in Ancient Rome. It's not a term with positive connotations. It refers to the appeasement of the public through entertainment and subsidies. Here is an image (from the 2nd or 3rd century) discovered in Carthage that depicts an early circus.

Circus of Carthage Mosaic

_{Credit: University of Chicago Bardo Museum. Public domain.}

So the circus, from the start, was about entertainment.

In the 19th century, the idea took off in Europe. One of the most famous clowns who performed at the circus was Joe Grimaldi.

Joseph Grimaldi as Clown Joey, 1820 (?)

_{Credit: George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Public domain}

According to the Literary Hub, the modern circus started in 1760 with performances by riders performing tricks on horseback. In time, the dark side of a circus emerged with the display of people who were considered to be 'different'. At that time, 'different' often meant from another place--perhaps the East, or Africa--and these people were put on display.

Portrait of Sarah Baartman

_{Credit:Wermer, Maréchal, Huet, designers ; C. de Lasteyrie, lithograph ; Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Frédéric Cuvier, authors of the text. Uploaded, stitched and restored by Jebulon from the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Public domain}

A woman known as Sarah Baartman, for example, was captured from her home in South Africa and was put on display in European circuses.

So, the circus has gone through many incarnations, from animal acts to clown performances, to 'freak shows'. As I made my collage I felt the joy of circus and also its dark side. My picture is not a grotesque representation of circus, but does suggest some grotesque characteristics.

Collage Process
Both Hive account@captainloken this week and Hive account@teukuadam (see here) describe in their blogs how the space presented in Hive account@shaka's template challenged them. I'm not as skilled as they are, so I broke up the space and used elements from the template to arrive at what I imagined.

First I went to LIL and found some interesting images there. Thank you Hive account@sekorama,

Hive account@muelli

Hive account@evagavilan2,

and Hive account@redheadpei.

I separated the support beams from the bridge and began to use elements from the LIL contributors to enhance the graffiti/circus effect.

The clown went from this:

to this:

I changed the joker from this:

to this:

And ended up with this:

The car I had contributed to LIL some time ago.

The tent top I borrowed from Pixabay. Thank you mysticartdesign!

The base of the collage is the original from Hive account@shaka's template (sandy ground). Here are the elements before they were consolidated into one image.

In the end, the piece didn't have the overall look I was going for so I ran it through the Lunapic Candy art filter. That worked.

As always, I used Paint, Paint 3D and GIMP to manipulate the images. (I know--I need to outgrow that).

LMAC Is Fun!!

I stayed up late last night to finish this ( I don't compete in the contest). Usually I wait until Wednesday to post my collage, but this time I wanted to share it. Anyone can see that each step was fun. I do recommend this exercise as therapy if you are tired or stressed. It works.

This week's contest is still in progress. There are days left to participate. Head on over to the site and join in. I highly recommend making a collage for LMAC :)

(At some point a dog from LIL (by Hive account@yaziris) almost made its way into the picture, but that was too much family circus, something I wasn't going for.)

Thank you for reading my blog. Hive on!