caricature

In the arts or literature, an exaggerated portrayal of an individual or type, aiming to ridicule or otherwise expose the subject; in art, features are often made comical or grotesque. Classical and medieval examples of pictorial caricatures survive. Artists of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries have often used caricature as a way of satirizing society and politics. Notable exponents include the French artist Honoré Daumier and the German George Grosz. In literature, caricatures have appeared since the comedies of Aristophanes in ancient Greece. Shakespeare and Dickens were adept at creating caricatures.

Grotesque drawings have been discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and Pliny refers to a grotesque portrait of the poet Hipponax.

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first artists to use the principles of caricature. These were developed in the humorous drawings of the Carracci family and their Bolognese followers (the Italian ‘eclectic’ school of the 16th century). In 1830 Charles Philipon (1800-1862) founded in Paris La Caricature, probably the first periodical to specialize in caricature.