Old School Caricatures!

Good caricature is hard to come-by these days, like with much of art it seems the pinnacle of the medium happened before the 20th century. Whilst waiting for my next class in the library I decided to go through the selection there (my school library has a great selection on art) and there they had "Master's of Caricature." In it was a long list of great caricature artists of a bygone era. I wrote a list of all my favorites.

Honoré Daumier (February 26, 1808 – February 10, 1879)

This one below is BEAUTIFUL!

This one below isn't a caricature, but it's still awesome!

Daumier also made amazing sculptures!

Jean-Pierre Dantan (1800-1869)

Masterpiece. It's a shame I can't find anything else this good, and when I do it's thumbnail size only.

Louis-Léopold Boilly (5 July 1761 – 4 January 1845)

Boilly has been one of my favorites for quite some time, a lot of his caricatures come from a book that was very popular at the time called "Les Grimaces."

Not only was Boilly a wonderful caricaturist but he was a master painter.

Georges Goursat (1863-1934)

Sidney Sime (1867 – May 22, 1941)

Was mostly known for being a fantasy artist, but on the side he did killer caricature! Sadly there isn't very much available online and the ones available are not very big or substandard quality.

Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm (August 24, 1872 – May 20, 1956)

This below was found on Christies website, it sold for $2,344. Jeeze! I sure hope the look at it.

Jean Veber (1868-1928)

Not a fan of most of his stuff, but I did love this. Haw! 

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901)

The lines in this one are beautiful, Art Nouveau was highly influenced by Eastern Art, maybe Lautrec was looking at Chinese brush paintings?

Man, the use of tinted paper is lovely, makes me want to do it!

Henry (Harry) Furniss (March 26, 1854 - January 14, 1925)

Claude Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926)

That's right, the king of impressionism started off making caricatures as a schoolboy and actually sold off a couple. Who would of thought a guy who painted water-lilies all day had a great sense of humor?

Lyonel Charles Feininger (July 17, 1871 – January 13, 1956)

This gentleman was mentioned in the book I couldn't find very much in terms of caricature, but I did find all these AMAZING paintings! It was too good not to share. 

Caravaggio - An Exercise in Fanciness

Caravaggio is by far my painter who ever walked the face of the Earth. This is one of his early paintings (before he started doing his bleak church-commissioned paintings) call the musicians. The man peering over his shoulder looking right at you is the painter himself. A lot of painters at this time didn't do many self portraits but they would sneak themselves in their paintings some way or another. 

So here it is, my amateurish attempt of replicating masterpiece artwork. I do say that even though I do like copying from cartoons, copying renaissance period paintings is far more stimulating. There are lots of subtleties to look out for.

At first, i was having difficulty with the lips of the lute player, here's a page of the lips. I found the lips on all of the subjects to be very difficult to capture. Once i got it I made sure to make lots of notes so I wouldn't forget.

I didn't work much on Cupid. He really isn't the most interesting part of the painting just a device to suggest that the musicians are singing love songs. I worked on the body's a little, I have a horrible habit of only focusing on the heads. 

At this point the features are being played around a little more. 

Problems lay with the nose and mouth the bigger the mouth was the smaller the nose got. Also, for some reason or another the nose went from slightly bulbous to flat. 

Fairly proud of my Caravaggio render here. Below are the placements of the head. 

Didn't have an easy time caricaturing Caravaggio but these are first attempts and i haven't gotten much further than this. The most intriguing part of this gentlemen in the background is the neck, it's very graceful and swan-like, beautiful s-curve in the front. 

I know these aren't incredible renders, but I haven't posted in a while. Not only that, but there's lots to learn from these painters because they were excellent draftsmen and they use lots of forms and shapes which can be applied to my own work.