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Characters and Caricaturas

April 1743
Not on view
When Hogarth designed this image in 1743, caricature was an Italian mode still little known in Britain. The London printmaker Arthur Pond had begun, in 1736, to issue etchings based on caricatures by Pier Leone Ghezzi, Annibale Carracci, Carlo Maratti, and Guercino, choosing for the most part robustly grotesque examples. Hogarth found Pond's prints distasteful and created "Characters and Caricaturas" to warn against what he saw as a debased foreign form. This first state, which served as a receipt for subscribers to his "Marriage a la Mode" series of engravings (1745), condemns exaggeration and elevates naturalism, the latter begin for Hogarth, a preeminent goal. A panel at the bottom establishes a basic dichotomy: three heads after Raphael, representing an acceptable physiognomic range for character, are contrasted with a row of repellent caricatures derived from Ghezzi, Carracci, and Leonardo. Above, further examples of character are provided by a cloudlike arrangement of profiled male heads in a tiered format resembling caricature drawings by Annibale Carracci. Hogarth's image proved influential in an ironic sense. Rather than dissuading British artists from using caricature, it demonstrated how the genre might be employed with greater subtlety. When later masters such as Rowlandson and Gillray mixed caricature with satire, they generally worked in a range that Hogarth would have called character.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Characters and Caricaturas
  • Artist and engraver: William Hogarth (British, London 1697–1764 London)
  • Artist: After Annibale Carracci (Italian, Bologna 1560–1609 Rome)
  • Artist: After Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio or Santi) (Italian, Urbino 1483–1520 Rome)
  • Artist: After Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, Vinci 1452–1519 Amboise)
  • Artist: After Pier Leone Ghezzi (Italian, Comunanza near Ascoli Piceno 1674–1755 Rome)
  • Date: April 1743
  • Medium: Etching; first state of two
  • Dimensions: sheet: 10 7/8 x 8 13/16 in. (27.7 x 22.4 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932
  • Object Number: 32.35(152)
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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Sheet of Studies of Heads, William Hogarth British, Red chalk
Sheet of Studies of Heads
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The Industrious 'Prentice Performing the Duty of a Christian: IIndustry and Idleness, plate 2, William Hogarth British, Etching and engraving; first state of two
The Industrious 'Prentice Performing the Duty of a Christian: IIndustry and Idleness, plate 2
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The New Metamorphosis, Plate 4: Invidiosa Releases Fantasio, William Hogarth British, Etching and engraving
The New Metamorphosis, Plate 4: Invidiosa Releases Fantasio
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Cutting Off the Nose (Modern Military Punishments)
William Hogarth
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after 1725
Sarah Malcolm, William Hogarth British, Etching and engraving
Sarah Malcolm
William Hogarth
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