English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. — John Shaqi
English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.Everitt, Graham
History
English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.
Everitt, Graham
Caricature -- Great Britain; Illustration of books -- Great Britain -- 19th century
Hogarth was a stern moralist and satirist, but his satires have nothing
in common with the satires of the nineteenth century; such men as the
infamous Charteris and the quack Misaubin figure in his compositions,
and their portraits are true to the life. Although his satire is
relieved with flashes of humour, the reality and gravity of the satire
remain undisturbed. The _March to Finchley_ is one of the severest
satires on the times; it shows us the utter depravity of the morals and
manners of the day, the want of discipline of the king's officers and
soldiers, which led to the routs of Preston and Falkirk, the headlong
flight of Hawley and his licentious and cowardly dragoons. Some modern
writers know so little of him that they have not only described his
portrait of Wilkes as a _caricature_, but have cited the inscription on
his veritable contemporary _caricature_ of Churchill in proof of the
assertion. Now what says this inscription? "The Bruiser (Churchill, once
the Reverend), in the character of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself
after having killed the monster _Caricatura, that so severely galled his
virtuous friend_, the heaven-born Wilkes." Hogarth's use of the word
_caricatura_ conveys a meaning which is not patent at first sight;
Wilkes's leer was the leer of a satyr, "his face," says Macaulay, "was
so hideous that the caricaturists were forced in their own despite to
flatter him."[5] The real sting lies in the _accuracy_ of Hogarth's
portrait (a fact which Wilkes himself admitted), and it is in this
sarcastic sense that Hogarth makes use of the word "caricatura."
GUSTAVE DORE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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