ART OF CARICATURE

Evening Star, Issue 21714, 8 May 1934, Page 10

ART OF CARICATURE

PUNGENT AND INFLUENTIAL Caricature is coming into its own again. Possibly this is due to the tact that the world's celebrities, who, after all, are the mainstay of the satirical artist, are such a “ caricatureablo ” lot. Take Mussolini, for example, or Mahatma Gandhi, they sometimes strike one as being especially designed by the Providence that looks after artists to make models for the exaggerated draughtsmanship of to-day; they make the caricaturist fairly itch to dip an incisive pen in his most corrosive ink and put their distorted likeness on paper (write Vincent White and Julian Rose in the ‘ Sydney Sun ’). Every age, of course, has extraordinary personalities, and also a sense of the ridiculous. Achillea would have been intolerable without his heel, and George Bernard Shaw has his shovellike beard and pepper-and-salt tweeds just as Mr Lang has his chin. There is nothing new about this business of parodying portraits. From the earliest ages something about the human appearance has tickled the satirical mind, and from the earliest ages man has been touchy about his personal looks—even the gods found amusement in the limping gait of Vulcan. And so, ever conscious of his apearance, man has always tried to improve on Nature, sometimes to the point of making himself ridiculous, thus providing fair bait for the satirists of his time. While there are many examples of this in satirical literature, little is known of the pictorial side, there being no certain trace of anything of the sort in European painting before the sixteenth century. It was in the School of the Carracci that “ caricatura ” was born, and it attained -a lusty adolescence during the seventeenth century under the fostering influence of their pupils and followers in Bologna and other Italian cities. Today caricature is looked upon as being the bad boy of the art world, but, like most bad boys, it is very healthy, and has an ingratiating humour that excuses many an escapade. . Caricature was known m England quite early in the eighteenth century. A certain Captain Marcellus Laroon, who, in his own quaint way, must have been quite a wag, has left a drawing which is inscribed “ Matthew Ashton, the Painter, a Cancatura,” which is dated around 1735. That there are no later examples of Laroon’s work may be due to the fact that Matthew Ashton succeeded in catching up with him! It was not until 1744, however, when the engraver, Arthur Pond, published a sheaf of about twenty-four caricatures, that the art can. be said to have been definitely established in England, and public taste irredeemably corrupted. In Doa there appeared a little book, ‘ Rules tor Drawing Caricatures, with an Essay on Comic Painting.’ This was by Francis Grose, an antiquary and artist, and his book was translated into French and German. By that time caricature had already been allied with i political and social satire, while still ' preserving its original characteristic of satirising the human apD6(UTinC6t , The birth of modern caricature can be dated with absolute certainty. On November 4, 1830, Charles Philpon, the son of a Marseilles manufacturer, who had been experimenting m journalism and lithography, produced the first comic paper—-thus revolutionising the methods and distribution of “ caricature ” in the most extended sense of the term throughout the whole world. . . , . There has hardly been a period when caricature has not had some influence on political and social events. The tremendous power wielded by the writers of lampoons was passed on to the makers of caricatures, who, through the obvious advantages of illustration, were able to add more pungency to the satire, and to reach an even larger public. PRICE OF FAME. It is difficult to say just how the average man yould regard the thought that a , pictorial effigy of himself was being circulated throughout the country in tens of thousands; what, then, are the reactions of the celebrity whose face and figure are considered only to exist for the purpose of being caricatured P Many, of course, choose to disregard them, counting the indignity as part of the price that must be paid for fame —it is a peculiar fact that the number of caricatures made of a personage these days indicate, in some degree, the measure of his importance, or at any rate, his notoriety. Film stars are an oft-caricatured lot, but they, as a rule, consider that all is grist that comes to the publicity mill. Sir Harry Lauder has always been fond of seeing his features humorously dealt with, and not only does he collect caricatures, but is able to do quite a good one of himself. The famous Enrico Caruso was another personage who took keen delight in seeing himself caricatured, and, like Lauder, was also fond of using his own face and figure os a subject for some amusing sketches and sculptured figures. To the man in the street caricaturemaking seems little more than distorting a drawing, but actually it means a great deal more. A successful caricature must embody something besides mere distortion. Likeness, of course, is essential, and, what is more important, some hint -of personality, some quality of soul must be caught. When. personality is brought into a drawing even a far from handsome subject can see the joke and bear the artist no ill-will. • Maliciousness and even downright cruelty sometimes creep into an artist’s work, especially in the field of political cartooning, when he may be swayed by considerations other than just sense of fun. Generally speaking, the offence is an unpardonable one and tends to destroy much of the good-natured humour which is such an attractive part of caricature. Technique is a feature of caricature which is of tremendous importance, one of the currently popular tricks being to treat the drawing with as few lines as possible, to get the effect with an absolute minimum of effort. Concerning this side of technique there is an amusing story told of Phil May, who was one of the earlier experimenters in the field of simplified drawing, and who followed on a period of extreme Acridity in art work. May took a sketch to a certain editor, and being asked how much he wanted for it, mentioned a sum that fairly staggered the wielder of the blue pencil. “What?” he gasped. “ All that for those few lines? Why, there’s hardly anything of it!” “ I know,” replied May, “ but when I can do that drawing with half as many lines you’ll pay me just twice as much!” NEW MEDIA. There is at present a tendency to experiment in new media. In America Tony Balcom has tried strips of thin tin, cut and twisted and soldered to make laughable likenesses. The caricature in wood-carving or modelled plasticine is also proving very popular. Quite the newest form of caricature, however, is that done with multi-

coloured and patterned rags, which are cut into all kinds of odd shapes and then pinned to a board.. Caricature is to-day a very valuable thing, helping through its exaggeration to preserve some measure of normalcy in our world by stripping the vanity from those who sit in high places. Like poetry, it is a criticism of life, and since this is a critical age, so caricature, with its incisive and selfpossessed mockery, is correspondingly acute. We owe a lot to our satirical artists —they have armed us with amusement, the one means, we have of coping with the fantastic events and characters which dominate - modern life.