Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1680) was an Italian giant of art in the 17th century. Kings, popes, and cardinals lined up to offer him sculptural and architectural commissions, and he played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Baroque style.
I don’t really give a mouldy risotto about any of that, though. What I admire most about Bernini is his talent as a caricaturist. After he decamped to France to work for King Louis XIV, Bernini kicked off a caricature craze. Just look at the small sample of drawings I have included here. I hope you’ll agree they are lively, economical, and startlingly modern.
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It’s astonishing how many of art history’s Old Masters - like those other Italians, Leonardo da Vinci, and Tiepolo - experimented with caricature. It backs up what I’ve always thought, which is that caricaturists need to have a deeper understanding of likeness, and of the unique architecture of individual faces, than the average artist; and that even great artists can hone their portraiture skills by engaging in caricature.
‘Caricature’ comes from the Italian word ‘caricatura’, meaning ‘loaded likeness’. Many artists saw caricature as an exercise in which they could present exaggerated, humorous, and often downright ugly representations of certain physical stereotypes. These were often based on contemporary ideas of physiognomy, which asserted that someone’s character could be assessed through their faces. Bernini, though, was a bit of a caricature pioneer. He ignored this ‘science’, and focused instead on what made a human subject unique. And he applied this democratic approach to everyone, whether high- or low-born.
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Eventually, caricature was exported to Britain and elsewhere, thanks to Italian innovators like Bernini, and, later, Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674-1755), who had a strong influence on British caricaturists and portraitists.
Ghezzi painted formal works for English gents on the Grand Tour, but he also produced caricatures of most of the distinguished visitors to his studio. Sir Joshua Reynolds dabbled privately in the genre, and painted accomplished caricatures of friends in the manner of Ghezzi when he visited Italy in 1750. Back in London, much of Ghezzi’s work in the caricatura tradition was engraved by Arthur Pond, and published by John Boydell between 1736 and 1747. He was also admired by the artist Thomas Patch, who engraved two of the Italian’s series of caricatures, and Thomas Rowlandson’s work shows Ghezzi’s influence too.
British engravers took the Italian tradition of caricature, and made it their own in following decades. I’m a thousand leagues away from being an expert on Bernini and his Italian successors. But I do know a good caricature when I see one, and the old boy certainly knew his way around a face.