New-York tribune., 1868-02-21
pnPULAR C1RLCATURE.


POPULAR C1RICATURE
Most people of even moderate taste must
have been surprised, on looking into the print
sbop windows upon st. Valentines Day, to OBJ
serve how cheaply tho popular faculty of per
ceiying beauty in the Fine Arts Is gratlfed.
Never did any holiday have the elegance and
romance of its origin mop completely taken
out of it. The peculiarly of these ready
written missives is that they are designed to
give pain, and that in giving it the coarsest
and most heartless expedients are resorted to.
Side by side with these tlwdry travesties OF
the most cherished and honorable affections, we
find the comic newspapers, some OF which are
the most melancholy productions which ever
greeted the human eye, with hardly drollery
enough to make a schoolgirl, who giggles upon
the slightest provocation relax muscle or
her innocent countenance; and some OF them
vulgar enough to provoke bushes upon any
check which has not lost the power of blushing.
Most of these prints have no more merit and
no more force than the linear lbels of his adj
versary which q country boy might chalk upon
barn-door. No one can be made contempt
| bic by representing him with an enormous
| head upon dwarfish body, with eyes like the
orbs Of Dir. Punch, and with legs like the legs
of the living skeleton. A talent for the gro
tesoue may not be quite so rare rs genius
for the sublime; but even caritaturd has It's
| laws. and there is no more severity III
depicting a man Us mOnste, than there
! is i'm the license Of verbal abuse. In humor-
ous representation, if verify must be discarded,
yerismiltude must be the more closely all
! hcred to. We remember q cOtempOrary etch-
ing of Mr. Pope, with his little legs and his
| orer-round shouldcrs-a device of his Grub-st
| enemies, which was cruel in its simple truth,
and enough like him to pass for portrait
There was nothing to complain of, and yet the
! intense malignity of the designer was betrayed
in every line. In political caricatITe, unless
an artist has sufficient understanding of public
events, he will give merely parcel OF lay
figures. under which he will be forced to PRINT
an explanation that they are doing this or that
absurd thing; so that ludiCrous represen-
tation of Mr.. Johnson and his Cabinet
might answer Just as well for the Inal
of the Rev. Mr.. Tying, accused OF preaching IN
q Methodist meeting-house. When Gen. Jack
son quarreled with his Cabinet, there was an
excellent print published which was simply
lettered "The Rats Leaving Falling House.
This, with the picture, told the whole story
The rats were running away; the General
armchair was breaking down, and the Int was
palpable TO the dulest man with sense enough
tt vote. We have never had an Admnistrn
tion more provocative OF bountltul ndlcule
than .he present; yet our men who draw upon
tbe wood do not seem to appreciate what we
may call tho richness of the situation to which
one or two of our artists might do JUS
tice if they would give up drawing
hogs and horses and hens for children, and
hotoke themselves to the human face divine
ar diobolical We need GilTay TO illustrate
onr politics; for Gilray, if We may Judge INN
b. those specimens of his work which we have
seen. comprehended tine political errors and
vices of his time much better than many mem
bcrs of Parliament, and had a general knowl-
edge which included the agricultural enthusl-
asm of George Ill and the financial schemes
of the bottomless Pitt What extraordinary
views of Mr. johnson and his decanters
of Mr. Seward and his Stka purchase, OF
parturient members of Congress deliver
ing their pavonine speeches, Gilray
might give MS, we leave the reader to deter
mine. As il is, great opportunity has pro-
uucc0 HaIull anything Ol HlcIlt anu We liam
" confess that We regret this, because we re
gard ridicule as justiiable weapon, and one
which is frequently more effective than serious
remonstrance. good carlcature IL simply a
stroke of wit or of irony III new shape; but
there are things in tho shops which seem more
like the inspirations of Il bilious dream than
the handiwork of man with a purpose. The
passers stop and stare at them, with mouths
wide open. but we never hear anybody laugh,
and we seldom see anybody smile at these
exaggerated presentments of our magistrates,
our ministers, and our lawgivers. Now and
then we catch a half-whispered and rather
reluctant "yery good;' and soon the little
crowd goes away with as much gravity as If
it was marching in funeral procession. We,
too. if we have found nothing worse in the
window than decent stupidity, take our de-
parture in a philosophical frame of mind,
glad to have escaped an enc ounter with impu-
dent nudity and emblemized obscenity, with
the faces of felons and the portraits of pros
titutes.
A pertinent (or impertinenD question was
asked in Congress a day or two since. Sup