Caricature


Caricature

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⭐ Core Definition: Caricature

A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, and can serve a political purpose, be drawn solely for entertainment, or for a combination of both. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in newspapers and news magazines as political cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines. In literature, a caricature is a distorted representation of a person in a way that exaggerates some characteristics and oversimplifies others.

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Caricature in the context of Political cartoon

A political cartoon, also known as an editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to either question authority or draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills.

Developed in England in the latter part of the 18th century, the political cartoon was pioneered by James Gillray, although his and others in the flourishing English industry were sold as individual prints in print shops. Founded in 1841, the British periodical Punch appropriated the term cartoon to refer to its political cartoons, which led to the term's widespread use.

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Caricature in the context of Burlesque

A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word is loaned from French and derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.

Burlesque overlaps with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical form, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian era. The word "burlesque" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics. Contrasting examples of literary burlesque are Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Samuel Butler's Hudibras. An example of musical burlesque is Richard Strauss's 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra. Examples of theatrical burlesques include W. S. Gilbert's Robert the Devil and the A. C. TorrMeyer Lutz shows, including Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué.

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Caricature in the context of Street performance

Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is practiced all over the world and dates back to antiquity. People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers, although busker is generally not used in American English.

Performances are anything that people find entertaining, including acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performance, one man band, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, ventriloquism, weightlifting and washboarding. Buskers may be solo performers or small groups.

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Caricature in the context of Cartoon

A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images intended for satire, caricature, or humor; or a motion picture that relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation. Someone who creates cartoons in the first sense is called a cartoonist, and in the second sense they are usually called an animator.

The concept originated in the Middle Ages, and first described a preparatory drawing for a piece of art, such as a painting, fresco, tapestry, or stained glass window. In the 19th century, beginning in Punch magazine in 1843, cartoon came to refer – ironically at first – to humorous artworks in magazines and newspapers. Then it also was used for political cartoons and comic strips. When the medium developed, in the early 20th century, it began to refer to animated films that resembled print cartoons.

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Caricature in the context of Stereotype

In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes make information processing easier by allowing the perceiver to rely on previously stored knowledge in place of incoming information. Stereotypes are often faulty, inaccurate, and resistant to new information. Although stereotypes generally have negative implications, they aren't necessarily negative. They may be positive, neutral, or negative. They can be broken down into two categories: explicit stereotypes, which are conscious, and implicit stereotypes, which are subconscious.

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Caricature in the context of Pyramid of Capitalist System

The Pyramid of Capitalist System is a common name of a 1911 American cartoon caricature critical of capitalism, copied from a Russian flyer of c. 1901. The graphic focus is on stratification by social class and economic inequality. The work has been described as "famous", "well-known and widely reproduced". A number of derivative works exist.

It was published in 1911 by the Industrial Worker (The International Publishing Co., Cleveland, Ohio), a newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World, and attributed to "Nedeljkovich, Brashich, & Kuharich".

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Caricature in the context of The Miser

The Miser (French: L'Avare; pronounced [lavaʁ]) is a five-act comedy in prose by the French playwright Molière. It was first performed on September 9, 1668, in the theatre of the Palais-Royal in Paris.

This is a character comedy whose main character, Harpagon, is characterised by his caricatured avarice. Harpagon is an elderly widower who wishes to have an arranged marriage to the impoverished young woman Mariane, while securing another arranged marriage for his unwilling daughter Élise. He is initially unaware that Mariane is the girlfriend of his own son, or that Élise has a boyfriend. Meanwhile, Harpagon is stubbornly protecting a cassette full of gold. When his gold is stolen, Harpagon considers the entire urban and suburban population to be suspects for the crime. The five acts comprise five, five, nine, seven and six scenes respectively.

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Caricature in the context of Caricaturist

A caricaturist is an artist who specializes in drawing caricatures.

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Caricature in the context of Tingatinga (painting)

Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) is a painting style that originated in East Africa. Tingatinga is one of the most widely represented forms of tourist-oriented paintings in Tanzania, Kenya, and neighbouring countries. The genre is named after its founder, Tanzanian painter Edward Tingatinga. Tinga Tinga also insipired kids animation tales, namely Tinga Tinga Tales.

Tingatinga is traditionally made on masonite, using several layers of bicycle paint, which makes for brilliant and highly saturated colours. Many elements of the style are related to the requirements of the tourist-oriented market; for example, the paintings are usually small so they can be easily transported, and subjects are intended to appeal to Europeans and Americans (e.g. the Big Five and other wild fauna). In this sense, Tingatinga paintings can be considered a form of "airport painting". The drawings themselves can be described as both naïve and caricatural; humour, and sarcasm are often explicit.

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Caricature in the context of Honoré Daumier

Honoré-Victorin Daumier (French: [ɔnɔʁe domje]; February 26, 1808 – February 10 or 11, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870. He earned a living producing caricatures and cartoons in newspapers and periodicals such as La Caricature and Le Charivari, for which he became well known in his lifetime and is still remembered today. He was a republican democrat (working class liberal), who satirized and lampooned the monarchy, aristocracy, clergy, politicians, the judiciary, lawyers, police, detectives, the wealthy, the military, the bourgeoisie, as well as his countrymen and human nature in general.

Daumier was a serious painter, loosely associated with realism, sometimes blurring the boundaries between caricature and fine art. Although he occasionally exhibited at the Parisian Salon, his paintings were largely overlooked and ignored by the French public and critics of the day. Yet Daumier's fellow painters, as well as the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire, noticed and greatly admired his work. Later generations would recognize Daumier as one of the great French artists of the 19th century, profoundly influencing a younger generation of impressionist and postimpressionist painters. Daumier was a tireless and prolific artist and produced more than 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1,000 drawings, 1,000 wood engravings, and 4,000 lithographs.

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Caricature in the context of Vanity Fair (British magazine)

Vanity Fair was a British weekly magazine that was published from 1868 to 1914. Founded by Thomas Gibson Bowles in London, the magazine included articles on fashion, theatre, current events as well as word games and serial fiction. The cream of the period's "society magazines", it is best known for its witty prose and caricatures of famous people of Victorian and Edwardian society, including artists, athletes, royalty, statesmen, scientists, authors, actors, business people and scholars.

Taking its title from Thackeray's popular satire on early 19th-century British society, Vanity Fair was not immediately successful and struggled with competition from rival publications. Bowles then promised his readers "Some Pictorial Wares of an entirely novel character", and on 30 January 1869, a full-page caricature of Benjamin Disraeli appeared. This was the first of over 2,300 caricatures to be published. According to the National Portrait Gallery in London, "Vanity Fair's illustrations, instantly recognizable in terms of style and size, led to a rapid increase in demand for the magazine. It gradually became a mark of honour to be the 'victim' of one of its numerous caricaturists. Bowles's witty accompanying texts, full of insights and innuendoes, certainly contributed towards the popularity of these images".

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Caricature in the context of Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese: 歌川 国芳, [ɯtaɡawa kɯɲiꜜjoɕi]; 1 January 1798 – 14 April 1861) was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting. He was a member of the Utagawa school.

The range of Kuniyoshi's subjects included many genres: landscapes, women, Kabuki actors, cats, and mythical animals. He is known for depictions of the battles of legendary samurai heroes. His artwork incorporated aspects of Western representation in landscape painting and caricature.

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Caricature in the context of Blackface

Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Blackface became a global phenomenon as an outgrowth of theatrical practices of racial impersonation in theatres across the British Empire, where it was integral to the development of imperial racial politics. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theater, in works such as William Shakespeare's Othello and Anne of Denmark's personal performance in The Masque of Blackness.

However, some scholars see blackface as a specific practice limited to American culture that began in the minstrel show; a performance art that originated in the United States in the early 19th century and which contained its own performance practices unique to the American stage. Scholars taking this point of view see blackface as arising not from a European stage tradition but from the context of class warfare from within the United States, with the American white working poor inventing blackface as a means of expressing their anger over being disenfranchised economically, politically, and socially from middle and upper class White America.

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Caricature in the context of Lyonel Feininger

Lyonel Charles Adrian Feininger (/ˈfnɪŋər/; July 17, 1871 – January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City. In 1887 he traveled to Europe and studied art in Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. He started his career as a cartoonist in 1894 and met with much success in this area. He also worked as a commercial caricaturist for 20 years. At the age of 36, he began to work as a fine artist. His work, characterized above all by prismatically broken, overlapping forms in translucent colors, with many references to architecture and the sea, made him one of the most important artists of classical modernism. Furthermore he produced a large body of photographic works and created several piano compositions and fugues for organ.

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Caricature in the context of Anamorphosis

Anamorphosis is a distorted projection that requires the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices, or both to view a recognizable image. It is used in painting, photography, sculpture and installation art, toys, and film special effects. The word is derived from the Greek prefix ἀνα- (ana-), meaning "back" or "again", and the word morphe, meaning "shape" or "form". Extreme anamorphosis has been used by artists to disguise caricatures, erotic and scatological scenes, and other furtive images from a casual spectator, while revealing an undistorted image to the knowledgeable viewer.

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