THE SPIRIT 01' CARICATURE.
ATR. W. S. JACKSON, who writes in the new number
of the Nineteenth Century, thinks that English caricature languishes for want of vehemence and anger, and he sighs for another Gillray. He argues that the political and social caricature of to-day, in spite of the complete and efficient machinery for distributing it, does not enjoy anything like the power caricature had when it was made known to the world by being stuck up in shop windows. Gillray was the valued ally of Pitt, and he cheered and fortified the simple minds of Englishmen, who regarded Napoleon with superstitious dread, by the simple art of making preposterous fun of the national enemy. But is no caricaturist of to-day a valued ally or a recognised arch- enemy of statesmen ? Punch administers indifferent justice, and therefore cannot be relied upon by partisans. We shall therefore say nothing of the great work of Tenniel in the past or of the work being done to-day by his distinguished successors, Mr. Partridge and Mr. Raven Hill, though in our opinion this is not in the least ineffective because it is balanced and considerate. We turn to carica- ture which frankly serves the interest of a political party. We have heard it said that when Mr. Chamberlain was conduct- ing his fiscal agitation the cartoons of "F. 0. G." did him as much harm as all the criticisms of the rest of the Liberal Party. At all events, the statement contains a good deal of truth. But it would not be fair in any case if one did not add—what is also commonly said—that Mr. Chamberlain is a great admirer of Sir Francis Gould's work and has bought several of his pictures, chiefly those directed against himself. That proves, what we are glad to think is the fact, that English caricature, even when it has deliberate political bias, can hit hard without being bitter, and that it can ridicule without maligning. It is more like boxing than stabbing. Mr. Jackson, as we understand him, prefers stabbing. He would like to reproduce the spirit of the eighteenth and of the early part of the nineteenth centuries. Within a few years of Waterloo caricaturists were capable of holding up the Duke of Wellington to every kind of contempt if he happened to be their political opponent. We do not lament those days at all. Caricature is satire or nothing, and one might well apply to it Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's lines to Pope :— "Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen."
Such a wound may be fatal all the same.
It is always a mistake to try to reconstruct conditions which have passed away ; the attempt ends in insincerity and artificiality, if not in utter barrenness. The conditions at the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth were marked by a characteristic coarseness of feeling ; a satirist, we mean, had to be brutal to make an impression on a leather-hearted public. It was thought amusing to represent the subjects of satire as deformed, squint-eyed, devilish-faced, with teeth like those of ravening wolves and hands like the talons of eagles. It was legitimate, and part of the fun, to represent them as drunkards and thieves and champions of vice. This sort of thing was appreciated for the simple reason that taste was worse then than it is now. If you go to some of the
poorer parts of London—places where education and cleanli- ness have made the least advance—at the beginning of February you may see " Valentines " of crude colour offered for sale which picture men on the level of beasts and women in a form which insults womanhood. In a rapidly dwindling portion of society it is still thought good fun to send them pictures on February 14th to people whom the sender particu- larly dislikes or, it may even be, particularly likes. Suck satirical " Valentines " carry on the spirit of eighteenth. century caricature. They do not appeal to us, and we suspect that if the art of Gillray, and even of &nay, Rowlandaon, and others, were transplanted into our generation, it would appeal to us scarcely more.
This is not to say that Gillray was not great. Any one who has looked through a collection of some hundreds of his etchings must have marvelled at the fertility, the inven- tion, the verve, and the furious energy of the man. In many ways he is a model for the caricaturist, who ought to ransack every failing (within the necessary limits) of his subject and never let slip an opportunity of delivering a thrust. But to revive Gillrayism would be to do something entirely foreign to our modern spirit. Matthew Arnold, with his quiet and insinuating ridicule, is for our age a more powerful satirist than Swift, with all his ferocity and mighty vehemence. Gillray is savage, and thits is not an age of
savagery. Caricature searches out secret places—that is its metier—but it need not publish secrets which one would not
publish in the text of a book or even in a reputable news- paper. "To see the manners in the face," as Dr. Johnson said, requires an art of delicate penetration rather than of blatant asseveration. It may be said that Gillray's subjects did not mind being victimised any more than Mr. Chamberlain minds being satirised by "F. C. G:' or than the subjects of Mr. Max Beerbohm object to his more mordant and stricter art of caricature. Of course, the lash was laid on harder in the eighteenth century because the senses of those times were blunter. We have beard of a Kaffir tribe which is fond of playing a game in which the players try to break one another's skulls, each player receiving a blow in turn with a heavy club. Blows must be suited to skulls and times. It is related that the Royal family never missed Gillray's caricatures, and laughed over them as heartily as any one, although they were outraged beyond all decency by such a picture as "Sin, Death, and the Devil." But it would be a very different thing to have the blows which could b4 endured in one age transferred to the tenderer skulls of our own age.
Nor do we believe that Mr. Jackson is altogether right in saying, in effect, that it was the savage plainness of Gill- ray's meaning which captured the applause of his generation.
Bunbury had a great vogue, but he drew in a gentlemanlike way, and was almost as free from " personalities " as a modern English caricaturist. Can any one really think that the
genius of Hogarth was well employed when he turned tem- porarily to political caricature, and entered on that revolting quarrel in which he and Wilkes vilified one another ? Wilkes was the baser in using his private knowledge of his friend's life, but Hogarth's famous caricature of Wilkes is neverthe- less a deplorable tour de force.
Mr. Jackson points to the caricature of France and Germany, and tells us that in it we may discover the feeling and energy which we lack. Of the French comic journal Assiette au Beurre he writes :— "Separate much of the purpose of the Assiette and more of its method; make allowance for the intense heat of partisan feeling always exhibited in France, and the mutual intolerance of parties, which, pursued into private life, drags back into publicity the most intimate relationships of family existence ; grant the grave faults of unbalanced violence and crude and revolting display—that sin against the canons of art in any province—and how much is yet left for admiration? What a joy to find such a body of free, fine work, the expression in line and mass of every emotion that can move the spectator of society. Pity, horror, fear, hot fury and cold anger, scorn, amusement, love, wonder, are born of conviction and given scope and being in a publication put entirely at the service of, and into the hands of, artists, and labouring unceasingly to do their work justice:'
Surely there is a confusion of thought in these words. They praise the technique of French caricature, not its intolerance and cruelty; but it is precisely these latter things which
should be justified in order to make out a case for the revival a Gillrayism. We do not venture to assert that many good
English artists are engaged in caricature. We think that very few are, and we regret the fact. But if more join the ranks, we hope that they will emulate the spirit—we say nothing of technique—of such a partisan as "1'. C. G." His is an art of which, in its tone, its temper, and its political effectiveness, we have every reason to be proud.
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