Part 1 (1/2)
English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.
by Graham Everitt.
PREFACE.
The only works which, so far as I know, profess to deal with English caricaturists and comic artists of the nineteenth century are two in number. The first is a work by the late Robert William Buss, embodying the substance of certain lectures delivered by the accomplished author many years ago. Mr. Buss's book, which was published for private circulation only, deals more especially with the work of James Gillray, his predecessors and contemporaries, treating only briefly and incidentally of a few of his successors of our own day. The second is a work by Mr. James Parton, an American author, whose book (published by Harper Brothers, of New York) treats of ”Caricature, and other Comic Art in all Times and many Lands.” It is obviously no part of my duty (even if I felt disposed to do so) to criticise the work of a brother scribe, and that scribe an American gentleman. Covering an area so boundless in extent, it is scarcely surprising that Mr. Parton should devote only thirty of his pages to the consideration of English caricaturists and graphic humourists of the nineteenth century.
Under these circ.u.mstances, it would seem to me that, in placing the present work before the public, an apology will scarcely be considered necessary.
Depending oftentimes for effect upon overdrawing, nearly always upon a graphic power entirely out of the range of ordinary art, the work of the caricaturist is not to be measured by the ordinary standard of artistic excellence, but rather by the light which it throws upon popular opinion or popular prejudice, in relation to the events, the remembrance of which it perpetuates and chronicles. While, however, a lat.i.tude is allowed to the caricaturist which would be inconsistent with the principles by which the practice of art is ordinarily governed, it may at the same time be safely laid down that it is essential to the success of the comic designer as well as the caricaturist, that both should be _artists_ of ability, though not necessarily men of absolute genius.
It may be contended that Gillray, Rowlandson, Bunbury, and others, although commencing work before, are really quite as much nineteenth century graphic satirists as their successors. This I admit; but inasmuch as their work has been already described by other writers, and the present book concerns itself especially with those whose labours commenced after 1800, I have endeavoured to connect them with those of their predecessors and contemporaries, without unnecessarily entering into detail with which the reader is supposed to be already more or less familiar.
I am in hopes that the character in which I am enabled to present George Cruikshank as the leading caricaturist of the century; the account I have given of his. .h.i.therto almost unknown work of this character; together with the view I have taken of the causes which led to his sudden and unexampled declension in the very midst of an artistic success almost unprecedented, may prove both new and interesting to some of my readers.
I have to acknowledge the a.s.sistance I have derived from the 1864 and 1867 MS. diaries of the late s.h.i.+rley Brooks, kindly placed at my service by Cecil Brooks, Esq., his son; my thanks are likewise due to Mr.
William Tegg for some valuable information kindly rendered.
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.
Having been called on to write a Preface to a popular edition of this book, I seize the opportunity which is now afforded me of correcting an error which occurred in the original edition. By some unaccountable accident the printer omitted my sub-t.i.tle; and it was not unnatural that some of my reviewers should inquire _why_, in a work dealing with English Caricaturists of the Nineteenth Century, no mention should be made of the graphic humourists who succeeded John Leech. This question is answered by the restoration of the original t.i.tle, from which it will be seen that the work is simply ”a _contribution_ to the history of caricature from the time of the first Napoleon _down_ to the death of John Leech, in 1864.” To take in the later humourists, would be to carry the work beyond the limits which I had originally a.s.signed to it.
One word more, and I have done. My intention in writing this book was to show how the caricaturist ”ill.u.s.trated” his time,--in other words, how he ”interpreted” the social and political events of his day, according to his own bias, or the views he was retained to serve. While exhibiting him in the light of an _historian_--which he most undoubtedly is--I had no idea (as some of my too favourable critics seem to have imagined) of writing a history of caricature itself. For this task, indeed, I am not qualified, nor does it in the slightest degree enlist my sympathy.
G. EVERITT.
_11th August, 1893._
ENGLISH CARICATURISTS.
CHAPTER I.
_OF THE ENGLISH CARICATURE AND ITS DECAY._
DEFINITION OF CARICATURE
If you turn to the word ”_caricatura_” in your Italian dictionary, it is just possible that you will be gratified by learning that it means ”caricature”; but if you refer to the same word in old Dr. Johnson, he will tell you, with the plain, practical common-sense which distinguished him, that it signifies ”an exaggerated resemblance in drawings,” and this expresses exactly what it _does_ mean. Any distinguis.h.i.+ng feature or peculiarity, whether in face, figure, or dress, is _exaggerated_, and yet the likeness is preserved. A straight nose is presented unnaturally straight, a short nose unnaturally depressed; a prominent forehead is drawn unusually bulbous; a protuberant jaw unnaturally underhung; a fat man is depicted preternaturally fat, and a thin one correspondingly lean. This at least was the idea of _caricature_ during the last century. Old Francis Grose, who, in 1791, wrote certain ”Rules for Drawing Caricaturas,” gives us the following explanation of their origin:--”The sculptors of ancient Greece,” he tells us, ”seem to have diligently observed the form and proportions const.i.tuting the European ideas of beauty, and upon them to have formed their statues. These measures are to be met with in many drawing books; a slight deviation from them by the predominancy of any feature const.i.tutes what is called character, and serves to discriminate the owner thereof and to fix the idea of ident.i.ty. This deviation or peculiarity aggravated, forms caricatura.”
As a matter of fact, the strict definition of the word given by Francis Grose and Dr. Johnson is no longer applicable; the word caricature includes, and has for a very long time been understood to include, within its meaning any pictorial or graphic satire, political or otherwise, and whether the drawing be exaggerated or not: it is in this sense that Mr. Wright makes use of it in his ”Caricature History of the Georges,” and it is in this sense that we shall use it for the purposes of this present book.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROWLANDSON.
THE TRUMPET AND THE Ba.s.sOON.]