Caricature Drawing: The Great History of Caricature

If caricature drawing today naturally enriches the pages of the press and is an integral part of the political game, it hasn't always been this way.

Its evolution is, indeed, several centuries long. The very definition of caricature has evolved over time, going through different modes of grotesque expression before reaching the one we know now. Let's explore, in the following lines, the History of caricature drawing through the centuries.

What is Caricature Drawing?

The definition of caricature is mainly a function of its era. Indeed, caricature drawing as we interpret and use it today is very little similar to original satire.

Etymologically speaking, the Latin word "caricatura" is derived from the Gaulish word "carrus" which means chariot. In Latin, caricatura translates to the words "charge" and "exaggerate". A primary meaning that will later derive toward the terms "charge" and "caricature".

The term caricature is thus used for the first time in 1740 in Argenson's dictionary. Caricature is then defined as a drawing that charges the trait of the person taken as target. Its goal here is to ridicule, shock and make the public laugh by stigmatizing the targeted character, thanks to an exaggeration of their defects and ugliness. A definition still valid today.

But before the 18th century, the definition of caricature drawing has nothing to do with comedy, and even less with politics.

• During the Renaissance, it's more the result of philosophical reflection on beauty and ugliness.
• In parallel, physical deformations are considered as objects of study by scientists who then seek to better understand the human body's functioning, its mechanism, by caricaturing it.
• For their part, artists, like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, or even Dürer, conduct numerous works on deformity through caricatures that, far from being humorous, are a search for all traits and all forms of humanity.

We must therefore wait until the end of the 16th century for caricature drawing to approach its modern meaning. At this time, caricature is based on a theory derived from the physical and psychic analysis of individuals according to which the latter's deep nature transpires through their physiognomy.

A theory notably supported by the Carracci brothers, Giambattista della Porta, Charles le Brun, or even Molann Kaspar Lavater.

The Origins of Caricature Drawing

Caricature drawing, as we define it as an object of satirical propaganda, only enters History after Luther's Reformation, with the beginnings of printing and the progress of engraving. However, caricature finds its origin well before these events.

Indeed, the physiognomic deformation of the subject is an obvious characteristic of the satire tradition that goes back to ancient Egypt and Greece. Portraits of Egyptian sovereigns, Greek vases and Pompeian houses are all testimonies of this ancient past of caricature drawing which doesn't yet have the name, nor the vocation.

Caricature Drawing in the Middle Ages

Grotesque characters, fantastic animals, symbolic… The Middle Ages gives pride of place to caricature, then omnipresent in ecclesiastical sculpture and miniatures. Thus, the Middle Ages seems to attach itself to a will of aesthetic rupture that rehabilitates the notion of grotesque from Antiquity.

A grotesque aesthetic that, at the end of the 14th century, makes its appearance on the first wood engravings, themselves at the origin of the first "massive" diffusions of images. Engravers then reproduce the initial drawing, in workshop and in relief, on wood.

Also, if the engraver tries to respect the original drawing's traits, wood's rigidity however forces them to schematize it and reduce the illustrations' dimensions. Finally, the completed engraving is transmitted to the printer.

Also, even if the process is very long and costly, printing already allows the diffusion of images, which soon opens the way to using caricature drawing as a propaganda object.

Indeed, the recurring contestation of power and religious authorities following Luther's reform generates a multiplication of illustration engravings. Increasingly caricatural, these come to embellish printed pamphlets, posters and songs...

Before being assassinated, Henri III thus becomes the very first victim of a large-scale caricature campaign.

In the Ancien Régime, caricatured and politicized drawings are increasingly exposed to passers-by's view, then reproduced on flyers accessible to all.

Caricature Drawing During the Revolution

Satirical drawing takes off with the 1789 Revolution. To be able to follow current events, satirical engraving production is largely organized.

Weekly newspapers, and notably Camille Desmoulins' "Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant", then offer a preponderant place to illustration, sometimes caricatural or sometimes informative depending on the concerned newspaper. For its part, the royalist press is not left behind and multiplies anti-revolutionary caricatures.

Political caricature becomes instrumentalized, and even the king, until then considered sacred and therefore untouchable, becomes the target of caricature drawing, premise of the monarchy's death.

The Evolution of Caricature Drawing in the 19th Century

Around the middle of the 19th century, under the July Monarchy, the strong development of illustrated periodicals allows them to gradually take the place of the flyer.

The destiny of political caricature drawing then intimately links to the written press.

However, power gets annoyed by these caricatures and condemns caricaturist Philippon in 1834, following caricatural drawings where Louis Philippe's face takes the shape of a pear.

Censorship of drawings, engravings and lithographs is then reestablished by the law of September 9, 1835 which obliges artists and newspapers to reorient themselves toward caricature of manners.

In 1868, the new press law allows the rise of "portrait charge" which is characterized by a strong resemblance to the represented subject, coupled with the exaggeration of their traits and the representation of a disproportionate head placed on a reduced body.

The 1881 law on press freedom then offers real freedom of tone to caricaturists who then attach themselves to sketching all political crises and all social controversies, and notably that of the Dreyfus affair.

The influence of the daily press grows exponentially during this period, in France as elsewhere, and caricatural press drawing forges itself a fundamental place there.

Also, satirical press subsists despite the advent of commercial press and popular press at the end of the 19th century.

It's even during this period that comes the culmination of social caricature and caricature drawing of manners which are then generally presented in full page.

Caricature Drawing in Our Time

With the May 68 movement, expression is liberated and tends toward a more provocative register, in an alternative press of which Hara kiri and Charlie Hebdo are part.

At the same time, caricature drawing is gradually replaced by press drawing, transforming the status of press illustrators who then take the title of illustrator-journalists.

From the 19th century to today, caricature drawing makes people smile, but its role goes well beyond this single humorous aspect.

Caricature allows sharing with public opinion situations judged scandalous and highlighting the ridiculousness of certain personalities.

By simplifying and exaggerating the subject's traits, caricature drawing simultaneously reinforces its message, to the point of even being capable of shocking.

In France, 21st century caricature is thus part of freedom of expression and that of information. The world seen through caricature drawing deals as much with elections, uprisings, wars and peace agreements, scandals, men and women, personalities and nobodies, joys, victories, life and death…

It thus finds its inspiration in all domains, and integrates on numerous communication supports to offer itself maximum visibility: from press to comic strips, through websites and television.

Conclusion

Caricature drawing has grown over the centuries to become this tool of satirical expression and information that it is today.

In France, the art of caricature has thus really developed from the 18th century. Always in adequacy with its time, caricature drawing is the fruit of a sharp sense of observation.

Indeed, the artist is capable of detecting the subject's most striking physical traits and transcribing them in a few pencil strokes, often mocking, and always exaggerated.

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