The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-11
A SMALL BEGINNING
From the New York Post.

II n ANS Will nave SOHclilHS iiiAt Il
- cause celebre If the threatened suit
Il of Nine. Jane Catulle-Mendes,
widow of the poet and novelist, against
Andre Rouveyre, newspaper artist, act
ually comes to pass. Nine. Mendes Is one
of the unfortunate celebrities, as she re-
CARDS It, whom M. Rouveyre has piloried
with his pencil, and not once but three
times. First he made her unhappy in the
pages of Mereure. Then he published the
picture as one of series in book form.
Then the paper Comoedia, presumably in
a review of the book, reproduced the 'un-
namable thing under which NJ. Rouveyre
has dared to put my name." Readers
who will turn to yesterdays Sun and conn
pare Nine. Mendes as the camera sees
her with the cartoonist' conception of her
will sympathize with the lady. A young
woman of more than usual beauty and
charm has been changed into an elderly
fury reminiscent of nothing SO much as
of one of the knitting women around the
guilotine in "A Tale of Two Cities" Crit
ical. opinion in Paris seems to side with
the lady. The test of good caricature, as
one writer puts it, is that beneath the ex-
aggregation and the burlesque something
suggestive of the original should stand
out. The picture ought to be recognize
vision plainly is not. She is right In pro-
testing against the artists ''porclne mani
festation" as travesty or lampoon rather
than caricature.
THE art of newspaper caricature as car
ried on abroad is savage to an extent
that we. on this side of the Atlantic,
neither practice nor even understand. In
the first place, the continental artist
ranges much wider for his game. He
we have little concern. Artists, men and
women of letters. men and women of the
stage, are part of his staple material. To
the extent that the American cartoonist is
interested in non-political SUBJECTS they
present themselves only as a type The
theatrical columns of the lighter news
papers may occasionally be adorned with
burlesque presentments Of the latest queen
of opera or vaudeville, but they are al
most invariably intended as a comic illus
tration of the text There is no intention
dtttlipt dCtudhy " toihintli, DIS tIt
true caricaturist does, on the personality
he depicts. In Paris, social prominence is
as good title to the artists attention as
professional prominence. Nine. Mendes,
for instance is not particularly well
known as a writer or in the arts. The
public for whom she Is caricatured can
only be the comparatively small circle of
her friends. That makes M Rouveyre's
transgression all the more cruel. To be
held up to public ridicule without the COM
pensating advantages of fame is unfair.
What the distant public thinks usually
does not matter; but 1t comes hard to
have ones intimates whisper: How mar
velously the artist has caught the soul
of her; would you have ever thought she
was really like ths?
We are more kindly here in the people
we spare and more kindly in the way
we handle people who are legitimate prey
for the caricaturist. Our artists, as
rule aim to represent the victim as gro
tesque; they do not make him hdeous. In
his physical presentment, for example.
Charles F. Murphy can have no complaint
against C. r. Macauley, who visulizes the
master of our local destini@ as an
rotund, full faced gentleman with
shrewd eye. aesthetically more attractive
in caricature than "Uncle joe Cannon is
in real life Compare Mr.. Macauley's
Murphy with the portraitures of the
Kaisers chancellor in Lustige Blatter or
Simplicessimus-a pale and lean anatomy
of man, made up almost entirely Of
length, knees, hands and a melancholy
Adams apple. Our newspaper artist would
have humanized Won Bethmann-Holweg
made him little less knocl-kneed, a
little less protuberant outside his shirt
cuffs, and much less dour of visage. MIR.
Gaynor, as Boardman Robinson sees him,
is not unlike the European manner in the
greater stress laid on physical appearance.
The pencil bites in more than usual with
us, but the emphasis is, after ALL on the
inner man. 1t is easy to see how the Pa
risian or Berlin artist would have turned
Mr.. Gaynor into a nightmare. Caesare's
Bryan comes even nearer to the European
model. There is a touch of bitterness in
| the round and oleaginous contours and
the broad, thin Tipped mouth; but consid-
ering how the Sun dislikes Mr.. Bryan,
the Secretary Of State comes off very we'll