29 August: Boreham on John Leech

The Art of Caricature
John Leech, whose birthday is celebrated today, got to work early. His craftsmanship was born in him. When he was only three, John Flaxman, the eminent sculptor, called at the Leech household and found the boy, perched on his mother's knee, sketching cleverly. Flaxman was astounded. "Do not let him be cramped with lessons in drawing," he pleaded. "Let his genius follow its own bent; he will astonish the world." He did. He was only 24 when he joined the staff of "Punch"—

Hitting all he saw with shafts,
With gentle satire, kin to charity,
That
harmed not.

And, from that hour until his death at the early age of 47, he had the world at his feet. He was, in the best sense, a fellow of infinite jest, and the thought of him suggests a timely and intriguing question. Is caricature, in the strictest sense of the word, to be considered as art? Is it not high time that somebody gave us a philosophy of cartoons and caricatures? What, for example, is the essential difference between a caricature and a photograph? Is a caricature something less than a photograph or something more? David Low, the deservedly famous caricaturist, recently maintained that it is something more. A photograph is cold, stiff, mechanical; it represents the sitter as he appeared during one microscopic fragment of time. A caricature, on the other hand, is the carefully-studied representation of the real man; it throbs with life; it twinkles with humour; it portrays the little oddities and eccentricities that make up the essential individuality of the person concerned. There is, Mr. Low affirmed, more than meets the eye in drawing a caricature. "It might be thought," he said, "that a good photograph, or a series of photographs, would enable me to collect the necessary data for my pencil. This, however, is by no means the case. I go to meetings, dinners, clubs, receptions, lectures, and so on, where the man I intend to caricature may be seen, and sketch him as he really lives, moves, and has his being. I do not believe it possible to get the essential personality of a man at one arranged sitting. There are dominant traits in every one of us which are revealed only in relaxed moments." The caricaturist makes it his business to watch carefully for those revealing periods, to see the man as he actually is, and to convey the impression to paper in a way that is impossible to the photographer.

Transformation Of Wit
No branch of modern art has made greater progress during the past century than the branch over which the caricaturist presides. In the old days, caricature was described, and described with justice, as a vile art. Its one object was to make eminent people appear despicable. The men who lent their pencils to this degrading office were held in contempt by those who paid them for their hideous work, and they themselves regarded their employment as utterly inconsistent with personal pride and self-respect. It was not expected of them that they should exhibit insight or cleverness or genius. They were employed to make their victims appear revolting, and it must be confessed that they succeeded in their task. They wallowed, as G. W. E. Russell has pointed out, in sheer, downright ugliness. "To represent all men with pot bellies, dropsical calves and bottle noses, and to portray all women with preposterous waists, towering heads, and clumsy ankles is," Mr. Russell truly remarks, "a painfully easy effort of draughtsmanship." It was cheap—cheap and nasty. In the vast majority of cases these preposterous sketches bore so little resemblance to the men and women they were supposed to lampoon that they would never have been recognised as skits on those particular individuals had not the artist taken the precaution of informing the public, by a few words—more or less witty—of the name of the personage that his outline was designed to represent. Just as a child will draw a creature with head, body, tail, and a leg at each corner, and will considerately add, "This is a dog" or "This is a horse," so the caricaturist of the old school hastened to the assistance of those who would otherwise have been bewildered by his work. Thus a grotesque drawing of Lord Yarmouth had to be inscribed, "View of Yarmouth," and a sketch of Lord Arthur Hill, brother to Lord Downshire, had to be marked, "A Hill near Downshire." The whole thing was pitifully paltry, essentially offensive and horribly disgusting. One of the most brilliant of these early caricaturists was James Gillray, who, in a fit of delirium tremens, committed suicide in the year of Waterloo. One eminent critic says of his work that, though clever, it was affected by the coarseness of his time—a remark which leads another to observe that, "this gives but a feeble hint of the grossness and even beastliness of many of Gillray's cartoons." We may let it go at that. It is to the credit of men like John Leech, Sir F. C. Gould, Sir John Tenniel, George Du Maurier, Max Beerbohm, and other workers in this delicate department of literary craftsmanship, that they have rescued the pencil of the caricaturist from the contempt into which it had deservedly fallen. No gallery or academy would now be considered complete without some examples of the skill shown by artists in this branch of their craft.

Exaggeration And Artistry
The caricaturist still introduces a certain amount of fiction into his portrayals, but it is relevant, inspired fiction, the sort of ficton that vivifies fact. Just as Sir Walter Scott weaves from the recesses of his imagination a charming story by means of which we are able to visualise the life of the Sixteenth Century more realistically than we could possibly do through the medium of history-books, so the cartoonist, by giving rein to his fancy, sets the object of his attention before us in a peculiarly effective way. A cartoonist makes it his business to exalt the impishness of exaggeration to the level of real artistry. Thus, few casual observers who saw Mr. Gladstone, either in or out of Parliament, would have noticed anything unusual about his collars. As a matter of fact, the authorities of Madame Tussaud's, when they added an effigy of Mr. Gladstone to their famous collection of waxworks, sent to his home for one of his collars and were astonished to find its dimensions quite normal. But the wits of Bouverie St. got the impression that Mr. Gladstone's collars were slightly conspicuous. This was their opportunity. They delineated the great man week by week in neck-gear so enormous that his face was only visible through the aperture of the collar. Or, to take another illustration, Lord Randolph Churchill was tall, well groomed, with large, bright, challenging eyes, and a neatly-curled moustache. He was alert, vigilant, commanding. Yet, as Mr. T. P. O'Connor says, there was a certain something about him that reminded you of an eager, impudent, self-assertive schoolboy. Sir John Tenniel, the eminent caricaturist, instantly seized upon that mysterious and indefinable something. Ignoring the handsome frock-coat, the carefully-selected coloured shirt, the neatly-arranged collar and tie, Tenniel consistently represented Lord Randolph Churchill in the columns of "Punch" as a small and cheeky school boy. The caricature did a certain amount of violence to Lord Randolph Churchill's stature, and magnified absurdly the curled moustache, but, on the other hand, every sketch was such a lifelike presentment of the waggishness, unexpectedness, and audacity of the statesman's mind that it was felt to be a brilliant forthsetting of the real man.

High Ends Of Nonsense
Now all this, whether wrought with the pen of the novelist or the pencil of the artist, represents real art. Indeed, it is art in one of its highest and most subtle forms. And the best testimony to its value lies in the fact that it has met with the appreciation that it merits. In the old days the lampooning of a statesman was regarded as an act of bitter antagonism; a shot from behind the hedge; a stab in the dark. If the victim discovered the identity of the perpetrator, he pursued him with relentless animosity and undying hatred. That day is dead. Nowadays, even the greatest of public men give ungrudging assistance to the caricaturist as he prepares his sketches, confer with him as to details, and consider it one of life's most coveted bouquets if ultimately presented with the original of the cartoon. The contrast between all this and the spirit of the bad old times is the contrast between light and darkness, and the modern caricaturist is to be congratulated upon this important aspect of his triumph. The matter may yet assume ethical and even international significance. John Leech himself corrected the ill-tempers of his children by sketching them in their tantrums and showing them the picture. Surely, if the drunkard could be made to see the pitiful figure that he cuts when gibbering under the influence of alcohol, the hideous object-lesson would be more effective than the most eloquent temperance oration ever delivered. If the passionate man could be made to see himself as he appears when anger has swept reason from the throne, he would henceforth struggle bravely to keep himself under firm and dignified control. And if only, when nations pout and bicker and quarrel, somebody would laugh them out of it! For, when all is said and done, is there anything on the face of the earth more utterly ridiculous than war? Is it too much to hope that, one of these days, a cunning caricaturist will hit upon the moment when the grave statesmen of vast empires are sending their portentous ultimata and terrible threatenings to one another to portray, with a few deft strokes of his clever pencil, the utter folly and futility and absurdity of the whole tragic business. The wrinkled faces of diplomats and plenipotentiaries, gazing upon the clever cartoon, will suddenly relax. Tittering and laughter will take the place of mutterings and murmurings and, in an atmosphere of good humour and commonsense, the differences will swiftly be adjusted.

F W Boreham

Image: John Leech