THE CARTOONIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22756, 17 December 1935, Page 13

THE CARTOONIST

LOW ON HIS DRAWING MALICE AND THE OUTCOME AIMS AND RESULTS. " The aim of the caricaturist is to discover, analyse, and select essentials of personality, and by the exercise of wit to reduce them to appropriate form. His is the art of all-in portraiture," writes D. M. Low in Ye' Madde Designer- " Portraits of persons made during periods of repose before the camera — human or otherwise —may be delightful in their sugared veracity, but as records of character they are incomplete, because character does not reside in what is perceptible to the eye alone. " Persons manifest themselves strongly to other senses. A prominent characteristic of, say, Smith may be that he shouts at you when speaking; of Jones, that he is a devoted father; of Robinson, that he smells. In any complete representation of Smith, Jones, or Robinson, such characteristics must hay,e their place. To insist that this is impossible in a graphic representation because, not being visible they are undrawable, is nonsense. It is the art of the personal caricaturist to fuse together the physical and the spiritual, to show not Smith but his quality, to lose him in his own Smithness so to speak. " ' I am afraid I do not care for caricature,' said John Galsworthy when I asked him to sit for me. ' There is enough ugliness in the world. I think we should encourage beauty.' There Is plenty of material for argument there. After all, a bull probably thinks a cow more beautiful than the Venus de Milo; and then again, it seems to be implied that the way to achieve perfection is to ignore imperfection." PERSONAL FEELING. The above is the opening paragraph in a lively defence of the caricaturist by Low, the eminent cartoonist, says Public Opinion. There are cartoons, of course, which merely amuse, but those which do not arrest the reader even if good and amusing do not linger in the memory, and certainly do not achieve the purpose the caricaturist has in view. " There is, of course, inevitably," writes Low, " a certain degree of strong personal feeling in most political cartoons. The passion of personal conviction enters into political cartoons, and perhaps they are the more effective for a little malice. As a political cartoonist myself, frequently it is my immediate aim to ridicule opponents and to injure their policies. But no artist in " caricature purely can do good work on malice. It clouds the judgment. The immoderate exaggeration inspired by malice is apt to become as tedious as too much slapstick in a farce; whereas a wise moderation preserves a semblance of plausibility in the performance which gives .it enduring interest. Brutality almost invariably defeats itself. "A story was told me once of a certain celebrated statesman who was asked to autograph a copy of my book of cartoons of himself. He angrily threw it across the room. 'To blithering blazes with it,' he stormed. 'Doesn't-it do you justice?' asked a tactless friend. ' Justice!' snorted the statesman, ' I want mercy.' JUSTICE v. MERCY. "When I say that conscientious caricaturists of personality refrain from malice I should add that they refrain also from hampering justice with mercy. Their restraints are technical, not sentimental. Speaking for myself, when, as a conscientious caricaturist, I am making a caricature portrait, the question of how the result may affect the happiness of my subject is usually a matter of no consequence whatever to me. Why should it be? When I am a cartoonist expressing ideas I am of ten . moved' by anger or by pity; but when I am a caricaturist I am a student with a specimen.' My interest is purely artistic. "... In England only a hundred years ago," says Low later, dealing with the point sometimes made that cartoonists are more vindictive in these days, "when the modern school of caricature was founded by Gillray and Rowlandson, it was the custom to indicate disapproval of a statesman by depicting him as an obscene degenerate lying surrounded bv bottles or dallying with his loathsome'lady-loves while the country went to the dogs; in these days there were 'victims' of caricature. "But not in Britain to-day. Victims, forsooth! Caricature, both in respect of personality and of situation, is, on the whole, less inspired by caustic spirit than ever before in its history. It is not too much to say that many modern British caricaturists are cursed by a tender regard for the sensitive feelings of their subjects almost to the ruin of their "art. . HERO-WORSHIP.

"Tlie caricaturist for the press is urged to think of the sentimental disposition to hero-worship on the part of f Constant Eeader' and ' Regular Subscriber.' He compromises with kindness. Where once his ancestors inexcusably dipped their pen 3 in acid, too often he now, just as inexcusably, dip 3 his in syrup. "Let us be just. Generally speaking it is not the persons caricatured who complain most about the liberties taken with their personal appearance, but their admirers.

"In general politicians actually like to figure in caricature and in the newspapers" is another assertion made by Low. "If we must confess it," he adds, "they are quite offended and downcast when the cartoons stop. ' They wonder what has gone wrong, they wonder what they have done amiss,' said Mr Winston Churchill, and he ought to know. In politics, no less than in other vocations, it pays to advertise, "I can inform indignant admirers who write to me to complain of my treatment of their heroes that this service, one of no mean importance, is not always unappreciated in private. More than once a publicity hunter, failing to discern the right shade of sea-green incorruptibly in my complexion, has asked: *What will it cost to get myeelf caricatured in the papers?" "Not that I set forth here such a sordid confirmation of the value of caricature in this aspect with satisfaction. Those who would pay to get their caricatures in the papers, ara usually those who, after the fulfilment, would pay more to have them left out."

The charm of this book by Low i« that it contains scores of his best cartoons. Some of the illustrations show the cartoons in the making.