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A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, and can serve a political purpose, be drawn solely for entertainment, or for a combination of both. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in newspapers and news magazines as political cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines. In literature, a caricature is a distorted representation of a person in a way that exaggerates some characteristics and oversimplifies others.[1]
Thus, the word "caricature" essentially means a "loaded portrait". Until the mid 19th century, it was commonly and mistakenly believed that the term shared the same root as the French 'charcuterie', likely owing to Parisian street artists using cured meats in their satirical portrayal of public figures.[2]
In 18th-century usage, 'caricature' was used for any image that made use of exaggerated or distorted features; thus both for comic portraits of specific people and for general social and political comic illustrations such as the satires of James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and many others. The title of the British Caricature Magazine (1807-1819) exemplifies this usage. In modern usage, 'caricature' is used predominantly for a portrait of a recognizable individual (much as originally used to describe the works of Pier Leone Ghezzi) , while the more recent term 'cartoon', popularised in the 19th century from its use in Punch magazine, is used for any other form of comic image, including political satire.
Some of the earliest caricatures are found in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who actively sought people with deformities to use as models. The point was to offer an impression of the original which was more striking than a portrait.[citation needed]
Caricature became popular in European aristocratic circles, notably through the works of the Italian Rococo artist Pier Leone Ghezzi. Caricature portraits were passed around for mutual enjoyment.[citation needed] and the fashion spread to Britain from visitors returning from the Grand Tour; the much greater freedom of the press in England allowed its use in biting political satire and furthered its development as an art form in its own right.[citation needed]
There have been some efforts to produce caricatures automatically or semi-automatically using computer graphics techniques. For example, a system proposed by Akleman et al.[12] provides warping tools specifically designed toward rapidly producing caricatures. There are very few software programs designed specifically for automatically creating caricatures.
Computer graphic system requires quite different skill sets to design a caricature as compared to the caricatures created on paper. Thus, using a computer in the digital production of caricatures requires advanced knowledge of the program's functionality. Rather than being a simpler method of caricature creation, it can be a more complex method of creating images that feature finer coloring textures than can be created using more traditional methods.[citation needed]
A milestone in formally defining caricature was Susan Brennan's master's thesis[13] in 1982. In her system, caricature was formalized as the process of exaggerating differences from an average face. For example, if Charles III has more prominent ears than the average person, in his caricature the ears will be much larger than normal. Brennan's system implemented this idea in a partially automated fashion as follows: the operator was required to input a frontal drawing of the desired person having a standardized topology (the number and ordering of lines for every face). She obtained a corresponding drawing of an average male face. Then, the particular face was caricatured simply by subtracting from the particular face the corresponding point on the mean face (the origin being placed in the middle of the face), scaling this difference by a factor larger than one, and adding the scaled difference back onto the mean face.[citation needed]
Though Brennan's formalization was introduced in the 1980s, it remains relevant in recent work. Mo et al.[14] refined the idea by noting that the population variance of the feature should be taken into account. For example, the distance between the eyes varies less than other features, such as the size of the nose. Thus even a small variation in the eye spacing is unusual and should be exaggerated, whereas a correspondingly small change in the nose size relative to the mean would not be unusual enough to be worthy of exaggeration.[citation needed]
On the other hand, Liang et al.[15] argue that caricature varies depending on the artist and cannot be captured in a single definition. Their system uses machine learning techniques to automatically learn and mimic the style of a particular caricature artist, given training data in the form of a number of face photographs and the corresponding caricatures by that artist. The results produced by computer graphic systems are arguably not yet of the same quality as those produced by human artists. For example, most systems are restricted to exactly frontal poses, whereas many or even most manually produced caricatures (and face portraits in general) choose an off-center "three-quarters" view. Brennan's caricature drawings were frontal-pose line drawings. More recent systems can produce caricatures in a variety of styles, including direct geometric distortion of photographs.[citation needed]
Brennan's caricature generator was used to test recognition of caricatures. Rhodes, Brennan and Carey demonstrated that caricatures were recognised more accurately than the original images.[16] They used line drawn images but Benson and Perrett showed similar effects with photographic quality images.[17] Explanations for this advantage have been based on both norm-based theories of face recognition[16] and exemplar-based theories of face recognition.[18]
Beside the political and public-figure satire, most contemporary caricatures are used as gifts or souvenirs, often drawn by street vendors. For a small fee, a caricature can be drawn specifically (and quickly) for a patron. These are popular at street fairs, carnivals, and even weddings, often with humorous results.[19]
Caricature artists are also popular attractions at many places frequented by tourists, especially oceanfront boardwalks, where vacationers can have a humorous caricature sketched in a few minutes for a small fee. Caricature artists can sometimes be hired for parties, where they will draw caricatures of the guests for their entertainment.[citation needed][20]
There are numerous museums dedicated to caricature throughout the world, including the Museo de la Caricatura of Mexico City, the Muzeum Karykatury in Warsaw, the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt, the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover and the Cartoonmuseum in Basel. The first museum of caricature in the Arab world was opened in March, 2009, at Fayoum, Egypt.[21]
Recently, I felt the need to read up a bit on the history of caricature. I am studying its origins and the works of some great artists who gave this art form a dignity of its own. I will share with you what I find out in a series of posts about this subject.
Even Leonardo da Vinci sketches of grotesque human faces that are often referred to as early forms of caricatures are actually more of an in depth study of the human physiognomy and the grotesque of it than the expressions of an art form.
A caricature artist refers to a special style of a portrait artist. A caricature is a portrait or depiction of real-life people. They are not cartoon fabrications of fictional characters. A caricature artist exaggerates the essence or features of the subject while keeping enough information so the subject is still recognizable.
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Not long ago, when editorial cartoonists started to feature caricatures of well-known people and political figures just before the turn of the century, artists had limited space to tell their story. Due to this fact, they would emphasize the subjects face so the readers would recognize them. Next, they would add a body doing an activity which would illustrate what their subject was up to. The bodies were not as important as recognizing the face, so artists would reduce them.
Newspapers, magazines and flyers would use representations of the evil, rich, powerful and famous around the world as part of their editorial pages. This practice has remained a common artistic style to this day. Whether in an editorial cartoon or caricatures drawn for entertainment, caricatures tell the story of the subject. The caricature is one of the most common and universally recognized forms of art.
It's common for professional artists to experiment with caricatures. However, only less than 1000 artists in the world consider drawing caricatures as their full-time profession. A caricature artist is also referred to as a caricaturist. Each artist uses their experience and training to develop their own unique style.
There are similarities between caricature artists and cartoon artists, however, they are not the same. Some aspects of the art forms are interchangeable, yet there are distinct differences between the two. A cartoon is a simplified and whimsical illustration of a person, animal or scenery. A caricature is specifically an illustration of a real person drawn in an exaggerated method to play up the subjects unique features. Some may suggest that an artist can create a caricature of a car or animal. This is true for a cartoon, however, for it to be true for a caricature there needs to be a real-life point of reference for the caricature to work.
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