THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 1923
. -
THE ARTIST AS A CHHARACTER ANALYST
- ~(Continued from Page One)
object is the sublimation of details. A line that has a childish sophistica-
caricature is then a graphic represen- tion. He relies on pure ,.ack and
tation of the essence of character. white for his effects though his line
Perhaps it would be well to point gives a suggestion of shading.
out the few caricaturiste that this Sullivant is perhaps better known
country can boast of. There is a. than Opfer because of his inimitable
starling paucity of them but as the animal caricatures that appear regu-
art is recognized they will increase larly in Life. He has an absolutely
in number. I can only name five good original technique, consisting cf broad
caricaturists who are working in the masses of feathery lines, which he
United States and of these only one, uses to good advantage. Often there
Alfred Frueh, approaches the height is real interpretation in his drawings
of his art. The other four are Will- Opfer made a series of admirable
iam Gropper, T. S. Sullivant, Ivan sketches of presidential possibilities
,Opfer and Ralph Barton, Of these for the New Republic a few years ago.;
Barton is perhaps the best known They show a keen insight and a sense
because of the amazing amount of of the grotesque which at once amus-
work he has turned out. Vanity Fair,! ing and' startling.
,Judge and a number of other maga- I have seen Alfred Frueh's work
tine print his drawings regularly. He in Vanity Fair and Shadowland. It
practically always achieves a good reveals a striking plasticity of tech-'
likeness, but there is little or no pur- nique that makes each caricature ex-
poseful interpretation of character in ceptionally individual. He does noti
his work. If he would stop cominr- heitate to rymbolize character by the
cializing his art and pause to analyze mobility or stiffness of his lines as
the characters he is drawing, I am -wejl a by exagerating the clharac-
sure he would show us some wonder-j teristic features and, in many cases,
ful results. His technique with its leaving all but the most importantf
thin line and independence of chiaro- details out. His work is a strikingf
scuro is admirably adapted to carica- example of the power of a line for not
ture. one stroke could be added to or taken
Gropper is familiar through a so- away from his drawings, their exact
vies of caricatures of literary lights length and twist, even their breadth,
that he has made for the Bookman. are so carefully made that any change
He seems to put much character in 'would destroy the whole effect.
his work, but his technique is a bit It is certain that caricature has a
confusing. He uses a short, choppy wonderful future. It is progressing
rapidly and it is a thousand timesI
AMONG THE more revealing than any photograph.
MIAGAZINES It can indicate things no photograph
I could ever present and as an art it is
(Continued from Page Four)' superior to the pen portrait.
'
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SUNDAY MAGAZINE
ANN ARBOR, MICHIG AN, SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 1923
The
At°tist
AS
A
Character
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other state in the Union, asserts Mr.
George C. Edwards in an exciting ar-
ticle on "Texas: The Big Southwestern
Specimen" of American capitalism, ap-
pearing in THE NATION for March 21.
But -he consoles the Longhorns by as-
suring them that "few other states are
in a position to throw stones at us."
"Is America Anti-Semetic?" is the
title of another "Nation" article in
which Mr. Gannett gives his opinion of
the trite Jewish question. He believes
that "Angld-Sai4on Americans haveI
small interest in the melting-;oi' ex-
cept as a phrase" and is thoroughly
certain that Anti-Semetism with us
is not ;so much a disease acquired
froA Eurone as it is a conflict grow-
ing out of "the smug Anglo-Saxon
tradition of exclusiveuess a'nd self-'
sufficiency." The "Nation" is always!
dazzling.
THE DIAL for March was a very
splendid magazine; it is a gust-of ideas.
It contains, among other good things,
the finest criticism I have discovered
in a long while. This criticism is by
Malcolm Cowley and is entitled "A
Monument to Proust". Whether or
not you have read Marcel Proust's
"Remembrance of Things Past" pre-
chudes not at all your, enjoyment of
Mr. Cowley's essay; because the essay
conforms to the first rule of art: It is
interesting in itself. Not only does
it hbnestly judge the work in ques-
tion, but it does possess its own ideas.
But what is more important still, it
forever keeps its own ideas subordin-
ate to a sincere appreciation of Mar-}
cel Proust, the artist. If you do not
know Marcel Proutt now, you must
surely know him after reading Mr.
Cowle's criticism.
"The Kneeling Woman" is a story
by Paul-Morand; and while it does
not educe any ferventi enthusIasm
from the reader, it at least rouses
thought, Cr the time being. Like:
many other stories published in "Thei
rDia", however, the styc is far more;
conspicuous than -the story, with the
result that the whole is degraded.
A more quiet note is Hugo Von
Hofmannsthal's letter from Vienna in
which he discusses his own work,'
"The Grand World-Theatre of Salz-
burg" which is soon to - be produced
in New York. Hugo Von Hofmaans-
thal,-is must be remember, is probably
the greatest continental poet of today.,
His letters from Vienna appear re-
gularly in "The Dial" but they are
hardly an index to his great genius.
H i:, li ttle ti diramas- "Dutch and
- t is our aim that
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symbol
Mieanliness
''It is not seldom that an art reaches. HALSEY DAVIDSON by either the painter 0r
its highest development before its true The endeavor of the bes
worth is recognized. The present gen- istsis to -reveal the cha
eration has. seen this 'truth frequent- In its highest form (and here I am fMencken's character as he understood st i the ph
ly demonstrated. -We wake up some only concerned with that form t it from his reading. Then he cam subject in the physca
morning and discover -that a connois- really an interpretation of character upon an x-ray photograph of M nk- precisely, as I=have sh
seur, rummaging around in some cor- - of the caricaturist. The
ner of the world, has suddenly come -..esre and caricature ant
face to face with a new aspect of art. ence, I believe, is in
Such was the "discovery" of negro° The nortrait painter, 0
sculpture, an art which was all the s
rage with the Parisian critics some angle. He makes no
years ago. Every now and then a new
painter is "discovered" usually when - humor, but rather airm
the lack of appreciation of his work' summing up of his si
during his life has left few r cor a ->subtly the lines that
of his talent and made a search for . .revealipg. Art is neve
all of his paintings all the rnore fas - jective, it can never b
cinating for the connoisseur. Bake- deviation from the pe
lock, who struggled through life un- ;-howeverslight, which
appreciated and finally died in an in- impossible and artistica
sane asylum leaving, an admirabley r'-- o heats t ae
--n---r-- ---ns. - --irh~for the artist to make a
heritage of paintings, is a case in centuation of the char
poin't. Sometimes a sudden forced con- lines.
tact with a country about which we The caricaturist apprc
have known little brings about a sud- - ject along a comic angl
den appreciation, often amounting to humorous possibilities
a fad, of the art of Ha country. The!
passion for all things Russian is a varying degree, his w
recent example of this. An even more sentation is nore av
recent, though slightly different, ex- than that of the portr
aiple, is to be found in the results;_t c same tima he sublimate
of the recent excavations in Egypt. - erally eliminates, all
It seems to me that we are soon to , 77Some of the best carit
see a similar appreciation of the art ( jseen were but a few i
of caricature, an appreciation which t-&V/ Alfred Frueh has ma
may very easily amount to a fad. likeness of George Co
The mechanical means ,of achieving / only the cock of th hat
art, such as photography, are becom- of the body is shown.
ing more :perfect each day so the4cept for the chin, is on
emphasis in -personal art -is tending the position of the hat
along interpretive rather than realis- -j The fact that caricati
tic'lines. An indication of the increas- i4to the representation
ing use of caricature is seen in- our allows for much more
representative publications. Carica- of the subject to be pu
tures are frequent in our newspapers ing than can be put i
and increasingly often we find them ' {Itlandscape painting. T:
being used to illustrate. personal - ; cricaturist, ot ide c
articles in our magazines.Where pho- comic attitude, has le
tographs or pen portraits were used his fnal result than th
ten years ago, caricatures now appear. scape painter. A sen
There are few people who appreciate % the same to any numl
the real value of a caricature, few in- -providing they see it u
deed who even know what it is. It conditions. They are
is a greatly underrated and little un- the thing down exactly
derstood art. Not many people un- An exception to this
derstand what is really meant when mystic painting where
we talk about a caricature. The ma-Im things into the scene b
jority have a very confused idea of A caricature Is made by the artist from his joneeption of the man whom ing. But nature has
the meaning of the term. Caricature he I drawing. In this picture Mr. House has endeavored to include the !acter that individuals ha
is a pictorial art by which the essence vitriolic energy of Mr. Mencken, the sweeping frankness characteristic of for little or no inter
of the character of the subject is re- his writing, lil geful poniardling of all that he characterizes as lokum, caricature is, however,
ly different from cartooning, with- is sulphurie and tenacious determination to set forth all that he believes and pretation.
which it is often confused. finally the paunchy conceit that permeateshis books. Like the other arts, :
The essential cj~ference between a' . ogy in literature. Its s:
caricature and a cartoon lies in the as that character is exemplified by, en's head and to his delig'ht found the is comparable to thedi
fact that a caricature refers to an ,physical characteristics. There is a features he was searching for sharply den in some of his p
individual subject, while a cartoon conscious exaggeration on the part of i outlined. Working with the three caricatured many of h
points to some social issue. The car- the artist, an exaggeration coupled! portraits and the x-ray photograph,
toon, as it stands today, grew out with a conscious sublimation of min- and caricaturing as his ideas of the s, biemied it itre
of a need felt for expressing -an a- or details, but this exaggeration and man' directed, he achieved the result victim. Dickens' chara
stract relation in concrete form.. T : cublir tioi are related to the phy- seen on this page. At least twenty worthy examples of ca
in our cartoons we have th "Ur ted I(sical characteristics only as they in sketches were made before the desired erature and the spirit o:
States represented by Uncle Sam, r trn a'e -related to mental and spirit- result was obtained. A much better was admirably reflect
the eagle, the socialist by a labrinl" l tendencies. Let us suppose that caricature could have been made if
man, the trusts By a flashily att., te artist wishes to caricature two t cartite cd been ady i- Teo illustrations
pot-ellid inividal, - ~. non cf similar physical characteris- the artist had been personally ac- The comparisons I ha
pot-bellied individual, and - so i q fsmla hsclchrce~-uainted with his subject but he has1
through all t conve tional syr ltics - both men have large, fat faces. qudo for a relation with
that the active mind of the cartoon- s-nall eyes, bulbous noses, thin -lips nevertheless managed to produce a 'there is a literary pa
ist has create for us. o canr alway -sand bald heads. But the artist knows character-revealing face b y t h e bring -out another point
understand tings bee hn they - that one of the men is greedy, ava- methods he was forced to use. Caricature is to portra
-are presented to us in picture form. ricious and sensual while the other It will be seen then that carfeature epigram is to a boolk.
Pictures were our first mediums of is kindly, jovial and broad-minded, so calls for an analytical and critical is a terse summing
expression, our writing grew out of in each he will exaggerate the lines mind, a keen penetration a n d that it might take a
them, and they still remain a sort that tell the character of the mdi- thorough understanding of the char- reveal. In being so
of universal language. If we can vidual, the greediness of the one, the acter of his subject, by the artist. many subleties and d
-see- abstractions translated into some :.3oviality of the other. Such an ability to judge character is book would bring out
common language we can far more Accompanying this article is a cari- not common and is surely coupled not truthful in so far
easily understand their true meaning cature of H, L. Mencken, the enfant with the incisive and brilliant tech- reveal the -whole truth,
and their relation to other things. terrible of American criticism, drawn I nique that caricature demands. By it is very much worth
It is for this reason that the cartoon by James House, whose work is well making such a high, and I believe indispensable. It is n
has such a popular appeal. It is known to the campus. The history of just, claim for caricature, I have pre- form of art but it rank
frequeintly more powerful than the the evolution of this caricature may(eluded any possibility of confusing The caricature then :
'best oeorials. proveInteresting. To begn with'caricature with the inferior, though the cartoon in that it
The caricature is, as I have said. the artist had three widely differng -oton powerful, cartoon. the individual while
individual It is not concerned with' photographs of Mencken. He alsoowfo
gr o - .l o e , ., I have, however, made claims for the idea -of the group,
.fled, but with a real person. Its aim acter a it revea e. itself in his caricature that might equally well be from the jortraitbecau
is to represent that person as thor- writing. In none of the photograph made for portrailure, espIaly im- is comic, and it is ep'
rstl-1va. 1 ast Iv as . coid he find a str-on 'Indication o'presionitic ortraiture, as x:-e-r se- ( nmued on Pa
eve 'y garment uIndre d by
s may be as
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