Dickens was, of course, as is repeated ad nauseam, a caricaturist, and when we have understood this word we have understood the whole matter; but in truth the word, caricaturist, is commonly misunderstood; it is even, in the case of men like Dickens, used as implying a reproach. Whereas it has no more reproach in it than the word organist. Caricature is not merely an important form of art; it is a form of art which is often most useful for purposes of profound philosophy and powerful symbolism. The age of scepticism put caricature into ephemeral feuilletons; but the ages of faith built
From a lithograph, after the drawing by Alfred Count D’Orsay
A PORTRAIT OF CHARLES DICKENS IN 1842
Reproduced from The Magazine of Art, by kind permission of Messrs. Cassell & Co., Ltd.
caricatures into their churches of everlasting stone. One extraordinary idea has been constantly repeated, the idea that it is very easy to make a mere caricature of anything. As a matter of fact it is
From an etching after a daguerreotype by Mayall