A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and ArtWright, Thomas
History
A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art
Wright, Thomas
Caricature -- History
The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the
character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the
same idea--such as that of figuring animals employed in the various
occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and
the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their
human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him.
The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but
the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which
have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures
of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus,
originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this
description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see
cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be
observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a
hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding
picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means
of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens
frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on
the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite
personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent
part he afterwards played in mediæval satire. Perhaps, however, the
most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey,
which appears natural enough when we consider its singular aptitude
to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some
curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this
characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap
them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer,
who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our
third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6)
represents a scene in which the game of draughts--or, more properly
speaking, the game which the Romans called the _ludus latrunculorum_,
and which is believed to have resembled our draughts--is played by two
animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The
lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and
his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise
and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill
pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the
Roman period.
[Illustration: _No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn._]
[Illustration: _No. 7. Typhon._]
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