Caricature

“ Caricature, one must remember, has two mortal enemies—a small and a great: artistic excellence of draughtsmanship, and national prosperity with its consequent contentment. [Pg 5] Good harvests beget good-humour. They stifle all motive for genuine caricature, for "satire thrives only on the wrath of the multitude." ”

“ As a matter of fact the work of the leading modern caricaturists is peculiarly free from vulgar offence. The art of caricature as the art of any other form of portraiture is to portray the true leading features through the mirthful marking of the obvious. ”

“ And if to-day, at the beginning of the twentieth century, we have a school of caricature which for scope and craftsmanship is equal, if not superior, to that of any nation of Europe, it is only just to recognize that it was Thomas Nast who first gave American caricature a dignity and a meaning. ”

“ There are certain pictures in American caricature which are wit made visible. They are the satire of instructive truth. Indeed, they tell to the eye the indisputable truth as words cannot easily tell it to the ear. In this way caricature is one of the most powerful agents in public discussion. But, like speech or writing, it may be merely blackguard. The incisive wit, the rich humor, the withering satire of speech, gain all their point and effect from the truth. They have no power when they are seen to be false. ”

“ All the men who are distinguished in political life become so familiar to the readers of "Punch" in their caricatures, that we know them at sight. Even those who can claim no such public distinction are occasionally the subjects of the caricaturist, as some of us have found out for ourselves. A good caricature, which seizes the prominent features and gives them the character Nature hinted, but did not fully carry out, is a work of genius. ”

“ Very few of those who admire a caricature realize that its satire lies, not in any personal venom, but in the artist's detached observation of life and character. In the early days of Vanity Fair people viewed caricature as something entirely new, and in the light of this novelty viewed it in the right spirit ”

“ And yet, if one stops to analyze the individual cartoons, to take them apart and discover the essence of their humor, the incisive edge of their irony and satire, one finds that there is nothing really new in them; that the basic principles of caricature were all understood as well in the eighteenth century as in the nineteenth, and that, in many cases, the successful cartoon of to-day is simply the replica of an old one of a past generation, modified to fit a new set of facts. ”

“ No, nor in all the length and breadth of English-speaking lands can there be found a small boy who, on being lectured by his father, would place one hand upon his heart, and lift the other on high, and say, "Papa, by all that I hold dearest, by my honor, by your ashes, by any thing you like, I swear to change my conduct!" All these things are so remote from our habits that the wildest artist could not conceive of them as passable caricature. ”

“ We shall now understand the comic element in caricature. However regular we may imagine a face to be, however harmonious its lines and supple its movements, their adjustment is never altogether perfect: there will always be discoverable the signs of some impending bias, the vague suggestion of a possible grimace, in short some favourite distortion towards which nature seems to be particularly inclined. The art of the caricaturist consists in detecting this, at times, imperceptible tendency, and in rendering it visible to all eyes by magnifying it. ”

“ Here, however, the test of the caricaturist is revealed, for while there are many who can perceive and hit off the obvious superficial traits of those who present themselves as ready-made subjects, the genuine caricaturist combines a profound sense of character with such a [111] gift of humour as will enable him to rise above the mere perception of idiosyncrasy or foible, and actually to translate into terms of comedy a psychological knowledge unsuspected by those who uncritically perceive and delight in the finished caricature. ”

“ The 18th century, however, may be called emphatically the age of caricature. The spirit is evident in letters as in art; in the fierce grotesques of Swift, in the coarser charges of Smollett, in the keen ironies of Henry Fielding, in the Aristophanic tendency of Foote’s farces, no less than in the masterly moralities of Hogarth and the truculent satires of Gillray. ”

“ It is much easier to fathom the comic effect of caricature than that of simple imitation. Caricature, parody and travesty, like their practical counterpart—unmasking, range themselves against persons and objects who command authority and respect and who are exalted in some sense—these are procedures tending towards degradation. ”

“ I confess as a caricaturist, surely I need not caricature my confessions by any mock-modesty. Although I have illustrated novels, short stories, fairy tales, poems, parodies, satires, and jeux d'esprit, for the realistic, the fanciful, the weirdly imaginative and the broadly humorous, as my Punch colleague, E. T. Milliken, wrote, my more distinctive, natural and favourite métier is that of graphic art. This intimate friend, in publishing his "appreciation" of me, put in his own too highly-coloured opinion of my black and white work in this direction. ”

“ This group is represented in our cut No. 210. The other caricatures which appeared at this time were two numerous to allow us to give a particular description of them. The artist is usually represented, under the influence of his line of beauty, painting ugly pictures from deformed models, or attempting historical pictures in a style bordering on caricature, or, on one occasion, as locked up in a mad-house, and allowed only to exercise his skill upon the bare walls. ”

“ But certainly, and especially in portraiture, very little reflection is needed to show one that the great peril to be avoided, and the most constant menace, is caricature of one sort or another. It may be the caricature that comes from imperfectly seizing and imperfectly rendering the traits of the subject, the caricature that inadequacy is. ”

“ The "characteristic portrait," although without the same qualities as the caricature, is sometimes more successful with one type of man. Nature is followed more accurately, the humour is there, if there is humour in the subject, and the work is naturally more artistic in touch and finish, and probably a better drawing in consequence. The caricature done from memory is wider in scope; one is not distracted from the general impression by the various little fascinations of form one finds in closer study. ”

“ For while during centuries the feeling for the grotesque or absurd, together with the almost inborn propensity for the exposure of foibles and vices in an enemy, a rival, or an obnoxious public character, had its outlets only through the agency of art, and the sculptor or draughtsman was the sole resource of those who loved caricature and farce, the introduction of caligraphy by no means diminished the call for the graphic delineators of comedy and satire. ”

“ Finally, caricature is drawing that catches and exaggerates individual peculiarities, most often with a result which is humorous or satirical. The art of cartooning depends very largely on caricature and symbolism for its effect. Cartoons interpret life. The successful cartoonist, therefore, combines talent for drawing with a high degree of general intelligence. ”

“ Thus originated caricature and the grotesque in art. In fact, art itself, in its earliest forms, is caricature; for it is only by that exaggeration of features which belongs to caricature, that unskilful draughtsmen could make themselves understood. ”

“ And yet the best type of caricature should not require a high degree of intelligence. Many clever cartoonists over-reach themselves by an excess of cleverness, appealing at best to a limited audience. ”

“ To the Teacher: Pupils should be encouraged to bring good cartoons to school. These may be collected, and the best put up where all can see and be ready to discuss as to size, composition, variety, number, and color of lines used in expressing the idea.
History of caricature and cartoon. It is hard for us to realize that caricature is as old as man’s ability to express himself with chisel, pen, or ink. Away back in the time of the Assyrians and Egyptians we find certain caricatures representing grotesque figures drawn on papyrus. ”

“ There was never a time in the history of the nation when the public mind, from one end of the country to the other, was in such a state of tension; never, since the days of Napoleon, had there been such an opportunity for a real master of satiric art. It seems amazing, as one looks back over the pictorial records of these four years, that the magnitude of the events did not galvanize into activity some unknown genius of the pencil, and found then and there a new school of American caricature commensurate with the fever-heat of public sentiment. ”

“ Drawings were reproduced successfully in stereotype plates for the fastest rotary presses. The field of political caricature had heretofore belonged exclusively to the weekly papers, but the great dailies now seized upon it, and commanded the service of the cleverest caricaturists. ”

“ Johnson is no longer applicable; the word caricature includes, and has for a very long time been understood to include, within its meaning any pictorial or graphic satire, political or otherwise, and whether the drawing be exaggerated or not: it is in this sense that Mr. Wright makes use of it in his "Caricature History of the Georges," and it is in this sense that we shall use it for the purposes of this present book. ”

“ The Pencil pricked up his ears, and with a knowing wink, said:
"Ah, I see! You want to know secrets. Well, I will tell you 'how it's done.' The great point about a caricature is that it must be caught unawares. A man when he thinks he is unobserved struts about gaily, just for all the world like a hedgehog. ”

“ There is another and less specific reason why caricature had to await the advent of printing and the wider dissemination of knowledge which resulted. The successful political (p. 7) cartoon presupposes a certain average degree of intelligence in a nation, an awakened civic conscience, a sense of responsibility for the nation's welfare. The cleverest cartoonist would waste his time appealing to a nation of feudal vassals; he could not expect to influence a people to whom the ballot box was closed. Caricature flourishes best in an atmosphere of democracy ”

“ But it was only with the advent of the modern comic weekly of the high type represented by Punch that it became possible to develop schools of caricature with definite aims and established traditions—schools that have tended steadily to eliminate and reject the old-time elements of vulgarity and exaggeration, to gain the increased influence that comes from sobriety of method and higher artistic excellence, and to hold erratic individuality in check. Few people who are not (p. 113) directly concerned in its making ever realize how essentially the modern caricature is a composite production. ”

“ They tend to partake of the methods of pictorial caricature. Indeed, caricature itself, as Bergson has pointed out, emphasizes those "automatic, mechanical-toy" traits of character and behavior which isolate the individual and make him ill adapted for his function in society. Our verbal wit and humor, no less than the pencil of our caricaturists, have this constant note of exaggeration. "These violent delights have violent ends." But during their brief and laughing existence they serve to normalize society. ”

“ They are creatures created through a creating mind that worked its six days for the love of good, and never rested until the seventh, the final Sabbath. But granting that they are the counterpart, the heavenly side, of caricature, this is not to condemn them. Since when has caricature ceased to be an art good for man—an honest game between him and nature? It is a tenable opinion that frank caricature is a better incident of art than the mere exaggeration which is the more modern practice. ”

“ This elder generation of draughtsmen on Fliegende Blätter were, indeed, not free from the guilt of producing stereotyped figures. The travelling Englishman, the Polish Jew, the counter-jumper, the young painter, the rich boor, the stepmother, the housemaid, and the nervous countess are everywhere the same in the first volumes. In caricature, just as in “great art,” they still worked a little in accordance with rules and conventions. To observe life with an objective unprejudiced glance, and to hold it fast in all its palpitating movement, was reserved for men of later date. ”

“ Another direct result of the influence of journalism upon caricature, in addition to that of compelling the artist to keep in closer touch than ever before with contemporary history, is the growing popularity of the series method—a method which dates back to the Macaire of Philipon and the Mayeux of Traviès, and which consists in portraying day by day the same more or less grotesque types, ever undergoing some new and absurd adventure. It is a method which suits the needs of artist and public alike. ”

“ A peculiarity of American caricature is that few of its “masters” know how to draw. They are like our great “humorists,” who are nearly all men of little education and meagre reading. As soon as they have prospered, got a little polish and some knowledge of books, they cease to be “humorists.” ”

“ A public which freely gave shillings and even pounds to see its hatred of "Little Boney" interpreted with Gillray's vindictive malice hesitated to expend even pennies for a cartoon on the corn laws or the latest ministerial changes. In England, as well as on the Continent, caricature as an effective factor in politics remained in abeyance until the advent of an essentially modern type of periodical, the comic weekly, of which La Caricature, the London Punch, the Fliegende Blätter, and in this country Puck and Judge, are the most famous examples. ”