THE BENCH.
"CHARACTER, CARICATURE, AND OUTRE."
THE BENCH.
"There are hardly any two things more essentially different than character and caricature; nevertheless they are usually confounded and mistaken for each other, on which account this explanation is attempted.
"It has ever been allowed, that when a character is strongly marked in the living face, it may be considered as an index of the mind, to express which with any degree of justness in painting, requires the utmost efforts of a great master. Now, that which has of late years got the name of caricature, is, or ought to be, totally divested of every stroke that hath a tendency to good drawing; it may be said to be a species of lines that are produced rather by the hand of chance than of skill: for the early scrawlings of a child, which do but barely hint an idea of a human face, will always be found to be like some person or other, and will often form such a comical resemblance, as in all probability the most eminent caricatures of these times will not be able to equal with design; because their ideas of objects are so much the more perfect than children's, that they will unavoidably introduce some kind of drawing: for all the humorous effects of the fashionable manner of caricaturing chiefly depend on the surprise we are under at finding ourselves caught with any sort of similitude in objects absolutely remote in their kind. Let it be observed, the more remote in their nature, the greater is the excellence of these pieces. As a proof of this, I remember a famous caricature of a certain Italian singer, that struck at first sight, which consisted only of a straight perpendicular line, with a dot over it. As to the French word outré, it is different from the foregoing, and signifies nothing more than the exaggerated outline of a figure, all the parts of which may be in other respects a perfect and true picture of human nature. A giant or a dwarf may be called a common man outré; so any part, as a nose, or leg, made bigger or less than it ought to be, is that part outré, which is all that is to be understood by this word, injudiciously used to the prejudice of character."—See Excess, Analysis of Beauty, chap. 6.
The unfinished group of heads in the upper part of this print was added by the author in October 1764, and was intended as a further illustration of what is here said concerning character, caricature, and outré. He worked upon it the day before his death, which happened the 26th of that month.
The system which Mr. Hogarth has laboured to establish in the above inscription, and which I think the genuine system, he has not illustrated with his usual felicity in the print to which it is annexed.
It was published in 1758, and in its first state exhibited a view of the Court of Common Pleas, and portraits of the four sages who then sat on that Bench.[214] Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Willes is the principal figure; on his right hand is Sir Edward Clive, and on his left Mr. Justice Bathurst, and the Honourable William Noel.
In this state the print gave character only; for though the robes of my Lord Chief-Justice may have a shade of the outré, they in no degree approach to that caricature which the unfinished group added to the plate in 1764 was intended to display. Had the artist lived to finish them, they might have given weight to his assertions, but in their present state do not much illuminate his doctrine.
The picture, from which each of the prints considerably vary, was originally the property of Sir George Hay, and is now in the possession of Mr. Edwards.