WILHELM BUSCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21159, 16 April 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

WILHELM BUSCH.

BY R. H. NEIL,

THE ART OF CARICATURE

The career of Wilhelm Busch affords an admirable illustration of the way in which a man of clear artistic conviction and vigorous individuality can make for himself a position of distinction in the art world in spite of the political interference with subject-matter which must have been particularly galling to one with his keen eye for political humbug and Kaiscrism. In Wilhelm Busch's case there was certainly everything to hamper the evolution of his genius. From the first ho had to work out his artistic destiny in the way that seemed best to him, and to choose the course in art that was most in accordance with his proper development.

He was born at Wiedensahl, in Hanover, 011 April 15, 1832, and died on June 2, ]9OB. He studied at the academies of Dusseldorf, Antwerp and Munich, where he had ample opportunities of studying and comparing the works of the masters of all periods. During these years he was making himself an artist of a very notable type by the best possible mode of training, incessant contact, with and study of human nature, and lie acquired in this way shrewd habits of observation and sound methods of direct and significant execution—which served him admirably throughout life. Twenty-seven years later he joined the staff of Eliegende Blatter, the leading German comic paper. The outcome of this was his practical association with Oberlander, with whom he founded the modern German school of caricature.

His humorous drawings and caricatures have a singular attractiveness, a vivid and decisive actuality which is remarkably convincing, and his pen-and-ink lines, which record with a few rapid scrawls the most complicated contortions of the body and the most transitory movements, are distinguished by a brilliant directness and simplicity of expression which prove clearly how sure he was of himself and how well his instincts served him.

These qualities in his art were promptly recognised when ho began to publish humorous illustrated poems, such has " Max und Moritz," which appeared in 1860, "Der Leilige Antonius von Padua," " Die Frornme Helene," " Hans Huckbein," and " Die Erlebnjsse Knopps des Junggesellen." Thus numerous series of witty and satirical sketches, with rhyming texts, plays, in the German nursery, the same part that Edward Lear's nonsense verses do in England. Such comic sketches, illustrating a story in scenes without words, inspired Caran d'Ache and his successors. The types created by him have become household words in his country, and some of his works, translated into English, have brought joy into many British homes An Originator.

Busch may bo regarded as the originator in the " Munchener Bilderbogen." of the short-series cartoon, made so popular in England by Sullivan, Hazelden, Bateman, Fougasse and others. Few caricaturists can tell a story with such verve. The comic strips in the American papers by Bud Fisher, McMantis and others are really nearer to the Busch tradition (ban (ho work of tlio British cartoonists. Walt Disney has carried the art to its logical climax in the "Mickey Mouse" series of the sound cartoons. It is hardly straining facts to claim that Disney's development of Busch's innovation is the most important single influence in the modern cinema.

To the British aesthetic sense the art of Busch appears somewhat coarse. His exaggeration of the ample curves of the German frail seem to be in questionable taste. But we have, to remember that Busch's art is in direct lineal descent from such Dutch painters as Jan Steen and Franz Hals, and that the Teutonic mind favours the Junoesque type. There have been several cases of writers who have acted as their own illustrators, but it is less common for artists to be their own authors. It is not often that the former combination has proved very satisfactory, and one would certainly expect the artist who undertakes the function o/ author to fare better, since moderate skill in the literary craft is easier to acquire than the same degree of proficiency in pictorial art. The peculiar quality of Busch's imagination is at once the explanation of the distinctive features of his work and the secret of his irresistible appeal to the universal child. An Old Art.

Caricature, as a form of expression in art, is as old as art itself. It is implicit in classic drama, stage craft and in ancient Hindoo drawings. With us, since the coming of the printing press, it takes the place of the licensed buffoonery of medieval life, the court fool, the " boy bishop," tlm " abbe des cornards " and the rest. Though it may bo a modern art with which we are dealing, an art has to be continually re-shaped and brought up to date, and we have in caricature something very fundamental, something deep down in our nature. Wo caricature before we create; to caricature is part of the mimetic instinct. It is a part of our need for laughter in life. Wo may got rid of humbug by laughing it away with caricature.

Tn these days of actute depression <i tale from the pen of a cartoonist unfolds a narrative that engages the. interests despite, or perhaps because of, its manifold absurdities. Its cheerful outlook and its artless naivete present a wholesome antidote which delights the reader. How much more valuable are the cartoonist's witty commentaries which are capable of raising a laugh or a smile than all the columns of jeremiads! How much more incisive are tlio political cartoons of Strube, Boy. Low, Finey, Dyson and the rest of the happy throng than even the most scathing of articles!

The modern art of caricature begins with liberty of tho press, and thus it begins at different times in different countries. Also, it takes different forms, for, even where it was not allowed full freedom, hobbled by a Bismarck in Germany or a Napoleon 111. in France, it might yet be permitted a limited scope. Good draughtsmanship is not essential 1o caricature; but the power of getting at what, you want, is essential. The essentials in caricature are many: to get at tbe sotd or pith of (bo subject, and get swiftly; to use simplicity of expression; to limn with lino quick and firm; to employ a minimum of explanatory text; to exhibit some quality, say, of kindliness of irony; and to be always humorous.