FINE ARTS.
HUMOROUS DESIGNERS.
WHEN GEORGE CRUIESHANK commenced his career as a caricaturist, he was the sole successor of GH.LRAY, BUNRURY, and RowitANDsoN, who for half a century had made our forefathers merry with their grotesque exhibition of current follies. Now he is only one of a dozen comic sketchers whose pencils are actively employed in waging war against melancholy. CRIAKSHANK, we fancy, was the first to purge caricature of its grossness and excessive exaggeration, though the more prudish taste of modern times prohibited the licence which those chartered libertines his predecessors had indulged in to its utmost extent. The still more fastidious fancy of HB has converted the genius of caricature from satyr-like libertinism to chaste and classic propriety. That some of the gusto of humorous exaggeration may have been sacrificed to the decorum and gentility of the new school, we are not prepared to deny : but at the same time, broad and obvious extravaganza has given way to more subtile sarcasm and refined ridicule. Even poli- tical caricature is less personal than it used to be ; at least personalities are employed more as means to an end, and chiefly when provoked by public proceedings. Personal peculiarities are rarely burlesqued but for some worthier purpose than to ridicule unoffending GEORGE CRUDISHANK, however, is a social, not a political satirist ; and to this class belong most of his compeers. HB is peerless and unrivalled in the field of politics ; as GILLRAY was in his day. Cnurg- SHANK, who had been led astray among melodramatic scenes of horror and history, has returned to his own proper domain of Cockneydom the Bachelor's Own Book is in his natural vein of humour, which flows as fresh as ever. We gladly welcome him home again ; though we could have wished he had struck out some idea of his own, instead of taking up one so successfully worked by the French. His Twenty-four Passages in the Life of Mr. Lambkin is an imitation of the clever bur- lesques in outline, of which M. Crepin is one of the most popular examples, where the hero is exhibited in a variety of ludicrous situations, arising out of some folly or weakness that is satirized in his person. Mr. Lambkin is a figure of fun of a bygone fashion : he is the type of those silly sheep of the bachelor tribe whose vanity is their chief foible, and who resent a shock given to their self-complacency by plunging into dissipation : his friskings are highly amusing, and the punishment of his follies is "an edifying warning to bachelors." We shall not attempt the hopeless task of conveying by words the droll ideas SO graphically expressed in the etchings of CRUHISHANK : suffice it to say that the forlorn bachelor, after seeking solace in a career of profligacy, is fain to fly from the solitude of his club and rush into matrimony. These etchings have more of caricature than is desirable ; but the gusto of the humorist redeems their exaggeration : there is character and expression in the most extravagant lines. The individuality of Mr. Lambkin is preserved throughout, through every variety of aspect and situation ; and the vividness of local truth in the scenes of which he is the hero evinces that lively perception of natural effects which characterizes GEORGE Crtuticsamix's sketches : the quiet of the streets at early morning, the freshness of the rural prospects, and the charac- teristics of policemen and cabmen, lawyer and doctor, sots and swindlers, are expressed with lively fidelity. The most striking pair of designs is on the last plate but one : the first represents Mr. Lambkin sitting in the cowhouse sipping new milk—the dozy, disconsolate condition of the va- letudinarian is contrasted with the vociferous wakefulness of a chubby- cheeked brat beside him, and mocked by a drooping dunghill cock as- sailed by a pert young bantam : the next exhibits him in the solitude of the Mausoleum Club meditating on his miserable state--the space and dulness of that club-room are quite oppressive. Whatever CRUM.* SHANK has witnessed and experienced, he delineates with wonderful truth: as regards invention, his fancy is more lively in graphic comment and illustration than in the creation of original scenes and characters. A recent writer in the Quarterly Review attributed the illustrations of Punch IO GEORGE CRUIRSHANK ; who, we believe, never made a single design for that amusing publication. Such an extraordinary mistake in a leading review shows the little attention bestowed on the art that contributes so materially to the amusement of the town : readers are content with being made to laugh, and care not how or by whom. The variety of humorous talent that enlivens the pleasant pages of Punch is no less remarkable than its excellence : of the artists, as of the writers, it may be said their name is legion. But there are three or four designers in the current volume whose styles are so marked that they can scarcely be confounded one with another by the most casual observer ; and are no more likely to be mistaken for HB than for CRUIESHANK. LEECH is the least unlike CRUDISHANK of any ; resem- bling him in the verisimilitude of his delineations of costumes and localities and a spirit of bonhommie, but with less of caricature as well as of whim and humour. LEECH'S forte is the true indication of cha- racteristic peculiarities : he has a strong sense of the ludicrous, com- bined with a quick perception of the graceful as well as the grotesque ; and he has pathos as well as comic humour : his sketch of the "Home of the Rick-burner" is a proof of this. KENNY MEADOWS'S designs are at once recognized by his academic style of drawing, the elongated proportions of his forms, their strongly defined outline, and a rigid, an- gular mannerism. His invention is fertile and often felicitous ; but his drollery appears strained, and often degenerates into grimace: the force and intensity of his expression, especially of the bad passions, shows the distinctness of his conceptions as well as of his drawing. But the most remarkable of the recent designers in Punch, both for the origin- ality and fecundity of his ideas, is Ricasan DOYLE, the young artist who first became known to the public as DICK Krrcler by his laugh- , able burlesque of the EAlintoun Tournament ; and who subse- quently published an extravaganza teeming with drollery and hu- Nmorous caricature, consisting of a Procession of heterogeneous per- wages, ancient and modern, actual, imaginary, and nondescript. The titkpage of Punch is designed by him ; and it exhibits that exuberance of fancy and intensity of expression—that power of depicting rapid movenient and violent action in elegant and grotesque forms—which are the- characteristics of this original genius. Queen Mab herself must surely be the source of his inspirations, driving through his brain those flights of fantasy to which he gives shape in quaint initial letters and borderings to the pages of Punch. His style is so entirely sui generis, that it can never be confounded with that of any other artist. There is a fourth—a deep designer—albeit his contributions are only occasional, and consist of little more than a few pen-strokes ; but there is a quaint significance in these free and homely touches that makes them of more value than the most laboured studies of an ordinary sketcher. This is the " Fat Contributor," whose Travelling Notes have lately en- riched Punch, and who uses his pen to set down his ideas in words or in lines with equal force and felicity. The Belgian sailor stooping down to wi e the nose of his little child, (in No. 162,) is one of those exquisite tries that connoisseurs doat on : the look and action of the group are so perfectly and laughably true—the man is so intent upon what he is about—ther0 is such a sympathy between him and the child—the com- placency of.paternal satisfaction is so inimitably expressed—and all this done with .ease and certainty by a few lines—that one regards this nose-wip,Ag as a stroke of genius. Punch going to kill the lamb, at the y_;.. of the same paper, is a fancy of kindred gusto. The hit at • _...vases the puffing tailor, in a recent number, is also capital. There Is no mistaking the hand of MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH in these cuts: his steel pen has a dagger's point and pierces to the marrow of the subject—be never misses his aim. What gives peculiar value to many of the graphic and verbal pleasantries of Punch, is the grave purpose that lurks beneath the jest—the moral of the fable : the droll idea raises a laugh, but its application provokes reflection, and thus the reader is made merry and wise. The sketch of "Prince Albert's Bee- hives," in last week's number, is of this kind : the working-bees in the glass hive, which the Queen and Prince are scrutinizing, are repre- sented by the labouring classes—artisans and agricultural labourers, seamstresses and servants, artists and scientific men, all toiling in their several vocations. The lesson is instructive.
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