A BOOK OF CARICATURES.*
To nothing more than to caricature is Abraham Lincoln's famous formula appropriate,—" For those who like that sort of thing, that's just the sort of thing they like." It must be confessed, however, that the genius of the British people as a whole is averse from caricature, and that our plain man is not able to appreciate the art in the true sense. He likes a joke and he likes a funny picture well enough, but that is not caricature. We are not going to attempt the impossible and try to define caricature, but it certainly is not the method which Tenniel and his able predecessors and successors have employed to delight and instruct our people in the weekly _Punch cartoons. Charles Lamb spoke of Ford discovering "something of a right line in obliquity." That is what the true caricaturist is always doing. His obliquity is ugly, violent, offensive, immense, grotesque. Yet look below the superficies and you find beauty in the ugliness, gentleness in the violence, charm in the offence, detail in the immensity,
grace in the grotesque. The caricaturist is, as it were, obliged by the conditions of his art to outrage the sense of beauty at every turn. Nevertheless, if he is a true carica- turist, beauty's frail flower may by the miracle of inspiration dwell in every line and shadow of his work. So much for the figurative part of the caricaturist's art. But he wants besides a great intellectual equipment, the power of reflection, of criticism, of satire, and of invective. He must for ever be plucking the apple from the topmost bough,—the apple that all former gatherers have forgotten, or at any rate not gotten. It is conceivable that a very stupid man with a perfect technique and a true sense of colour may give us infinite delight in his painted cloth. The caricaturist must of necessity be " an intellectual creature." He must also be what Burke calls "a public creature." That is, he must know the world, great and small, and be able to shoot not merely folly as it flies, but wisdom and great achievement. Caricature is a fool's—an Elizabethan fool's—commentary in line and colour on the life of our day.
Those who turn to Mr. Beerbohm's delightful work, A Book of Caricatures, will, We are sure, agree that it fulfils the essential conditions of the art. Look at the admirable picture of Mr. Sargent at work in his studio which forms a frontispiece to the volume. The authentic spirit of Mr. Sargent's art is shown in the magnificently distorted energy with which be is assailing his canvas. How admirable, too, is the criticism conveyed in the sitter's, or rather stander's, pose and habit. A woman of fashion, a Duchess, or a millionairess in the panoply of the mode is stuck up before us in all her dulness and immobility, and gives with her yellow, dyed coiffure and vacant look a whole world of contrast to the painter's energy and enthusiasm. It is a fascinating study, and the three little musicians fiddling in the foreground accomplish the mental picture as they complete the pattern of the design. And here we may note that Mr. Max Beerbohm is always at his best when he is what we may term dramatic. Admirers of his former book may remember the inimitable design of Tennyson reading his poems to the Queen, and the delightful collection of men and beasts in the garden of Rossetti. We do not mean to say that Mr. Beerbohm is not happy when dealing with a single figure, but be is distinctly at his best when he is telling a story. Excellent beyond any description we can supply is, for example, the drawing in the present volume of " Mr. Locke Taking Tea at the — Club." The characterisation of the four admiring ladies is as perfect a criticism of a certain phase of London life as can be imagined. Delightful, too, is "Mr. H. G. Wells Conjuring up the Darling Future." Different, but equally good, is the picture of Lord Grim- thorpe entering a Parisian cafe. " Voila, milor Grimthorpe qui arrive !" The maitre d'luitel and the row of waiters through which " milor " passes are the inn servants of all time. We know each of them to-day, but these men were also "the drawers" in Henry IV. They set his winter and his summer chair for Dryden at Wills's Coffee House. It was they who welcomed Shenstone at his inn. They laid the table for the Pickwick Club.
Amongst the single figures, none is better than Mr. Henry James enveloped in a fog, but trying to see his own hand • A Book of Caricatures. By Max Beerbohm. London : Methuen and Co. Hon. Litt.D. (Dublin). With Illustrations and Maps. Oxford : at the
1215. net.' Clarendon Press. [21s. net.]
Delightful, again, is the explanatory passage in which Mr. Henry James's style is mocked to perfection because it is mocked so sympathetically. There is a certain sameness about many of Mr. Max Beerbohm's caricatures, yet on occasion he can get quite away from himself ; witness the most attractive diabolic rendering of Mr. Bernard Shaw. The flames of a mild and lucent Hades spring around him as he stands, and neatly curled across his arm is a spiteful tail, though we are sure that it is armed with a sting which is not, but only looks, envenomed. We must not forget, too, the entertaining picture of " Lord Northcliffe Suggesting a Headline to Mr. Gosse." Another example of Mr. Beerbohm's power and originality is the picture of Mr. Claude Lowther dominating Paris. The design of the colossal figure with its background of streets and people has true originality.
But, after all, it is a poor thing to write about pictures. The better way is to look at them, and we recommend all who care for wit and humour in line to study Mr. Max Beerbohm's book,—first, however, clearing their minds from any pre- conceived notion of what caricature ought to be. Everything has a beginning and an origin, even things apparently so original and individualistic as Mr. Beerbohm's art. In our opinion, he derives chiefly from Lear, though he has also no doubt been affected by Caran d'Ache and Beardsley, and shows in certain respects a strain of ancestry from Rowlandson and Gillray. It is an odd mixture, but the result is a great caricaturist. Long may he make sport of and for the Philistines !
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