The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1902-06-24
ART OF CARICATURE
EVOLUTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE
NEWSPAPER CARTOON.

The Ancient Greeks, Romans and
Egyptians Used Grotesque Pictures
to Emphasize Their Satire - The
Eighteenth Century Craze.
The story is told of an able of the
seventeenth century who was as de-
formed in figure as he was ridiculous
In dress, and as sensitive about his
| physical deformity as he was vain of
his eccentric attire, that while serving
mass one morning he observed smile
of contempt on the face of one of the
courtiers present and determined to
avenge himself by serving process
upon him for appearance in court the
following day.
The offender, NJ de Lasson by name,
knowing that things would go hard
with him unless he could show some
reason for his mirth, made hasty
sketch of the hunchback able, exag-
gerating in size the six black caps and
the waistcoats in which he was wont
to appear, and when he was solemnly
asked to show cause for his unseemly
mirth and indignity to the holy church
he suddenly displayed before his judges
the caricature of the able as his Eek
cuse." The likeness was so excellent
and the cartoon so grotesque that the
entire court fell to laughing. and the
accused was liberated without a repri-
mand
This is the first authentic case of the
power of the cartoon in hall of jus
tice, but it illustrates the power of the
pencil in depicting the follies of the
foolish and the affectations of the arti-
fetal.
There is no telling when the art of
caricature began. There are a number
of grotesques that have come down to
us from earliest Egyptian times. The
Greeks employed pictures to emphasize
their satire, and so did the Romans.
All through the middle ages there were
numberless examples of ''grotesque-
ries" which, curiously enough, were
used in enforcing the doctrines of the
church by means of satirizing the devil.
But the eighteenth century was the
heyday of the cartoon.
Beginning in France and overrunning
into Holland and thence across the
channel into England, the flood of Carl
caturists carried everything before it,
and it is safe to say that we read the
history of the times with clearer vision
and with more accuracy Of detail for
the mirror which caricaturists held up
to reflect the striking peculiarities of
the men and events passing before it.
Gautier mentions a Spanish cartoon
ist Francisco Gaya y Lucientes, mix
ture of Rembrandt, Vatican and Ra-
belais, who preceded the two great car
icaturists of the latter half of the
eighteenth century, George Cruikshank
In England and NJ Charlet in France
Charlet is known as the father of mod
ern social caricature and holds as good
title to his position as does Philipau to
that of the father of comic journalism,
with LIE Charivari, the strongest paper
of its kind. Then came Punch in Eng
land, which still retains its subtitle of
the London Charivari. for years the
faithful if not the most highly polished
reflector of British life. Upon its staff
John Leech. Richard Doyle, John Fen
MEL, George du Maurier and a dozen
men of lesser name kept Great Britain
In good humor for two generations.
1t has been reserved for America,
however. to bring forth a new race Of
caricaturists, which for lack of better
title may be called the personal car
toonists, men who seize upon the char
acter1stics of an individual and so ex-
aggerate them that the subjects of the
cartoons are known by the most promi-
nent features in their physical, mental
or moral makeup.
True there was one man in London
hundred years ago, Gllray by name,
who had this faculty of dissecting his
subject until he found his weakest
point and then numerically pricking it
with his drawing pencil, but with him
the race died out, to be reincarnated in
America. Gillray was close observer
Of people and events. He would sit in
his publishers window and watch the
tops of the court as they passed and
fasten in his memory every feature by
which a man would be recognized by
his acquaintance. He remembered ev-
cry story that related to the traits of
character of those in the public eye,
and the st. James street of 1900 is
faithfully reproduced in his art.
Perhaps we Americans look at the
droll side Of life more than other peo-
pie, but certain it is we have more and
better cartoonists than elsewhere. The
very quickness with which we see the
point of joke demands equal facility
in portraying drolIery in a cartoon. We
sketch boldly and leave much of the
unnecessary detail to our slower cous-
ins. Then. too. our public events hap
pen with such startling rapidity that a
cartoon Of yesterdays doings would be
fat today. and we must keep very
much alive and be ready for political
change overnight
In other words. the alert American
must have depicted in his cartoon the
very traits of character that have made
him what he is. the quickest and
brightest of men.-Thomas Mast in
New York News