George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank (London, September 27th 1792 - 1878) is an illustrator and British caricaturist.

Caricatures and illustrations

Political caricatures

The career of Cruikshank, which is spread out over six decades, starts with the publication of satirical engravings which attack the royal family and the politicians in sight. In 1820 it touches a sum of 100 pounds in exchange of the promise not to caricature its majesty the king (George III of Great Britain) " in a situation which would offend the morale". It represents England under the features of a character baptized John Bull popularized starting from 1790 pennies the pencil of Britanniques artists like James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson.

Cruikshank takes the succession of James Gillray, one of the artists who inspired it the most, while becoming the caricaturist more appreciated of Great Britain. For a whole generation of reader, it is him which give a face to the preserving , the Tories , with the ancestors of the liberal , the Whigs and with the radical reformers of which he makes fun with same freedom. It draws its inspiration in the most varied topicality: the war, enemies of England (it is very chauvinistic), testifying to a sensitivity acute for the Burlesque but also the odd one and the horrible one. Its hatred of the enemies of the nation shows through in the form of primary xenophobia in the series of illustrations which it carried out for the Histoire of the Irish rebellion of 1798 , of William Hamilton Maxwell in 1845, where it puts in scene the Irish rebels under the features of grotesque and simiesques characters.

Social caricatures

Cruikshank is also made know by its caricatures of the daily life in Great Britain appeared in reviews such as The Comic Almanack (1835-1853) or Omnibus (1842). He will know later an international celebrity by illustrating novels, in particular those of Charles Dickens.

He produces series of engravings inspired by topics moralizers which the fight against alcoholism made popular: The Bottle (the bottle), series of 8 engravings (1847), and its continuation, The Drunkard' S Children (Enfants of the drunkard), another series of 8 engravings (1848), while a more ambitious work, The Worship off Bacchus (the Worship of Bacchus) according to an oil of the artist who is today with the National Gallery , is published by subscription.

For Charles Dickens, Cruikshank illustrates Sketches by Boz (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838). The Cruikshank December 30th, 1871 sends a letter to the daily newspaper The Times or he asserts his participation in the scenario of Oliver Twist . The letter starts a furious polemic on the paternity of the novel. If Dickens is the writer, Cruikshank is in the beginning many ideas and it is difficult, if not impossible, to say what returns to one or to the other.

See too

Caricature

External documentation

Bibliography :

external Bonds :

biography and study of works of Cruikshank