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Caricature of US president Barack Obama by Bruno Sousa

Knowledge Mushohwe Art Zone
Caricature, a form of line art which is judgmental and contains critical content, appears mostly in the print media and is intended to address a specific problem through the use of exaggerated drawings.

Exaggera­tion is a key term in the definition of caricature.

Exaggeration, encompassing distortion of facial features and body language, is largely seen as a cornerstone of the celebrated art form.

However, caricature is not only about drawing funny-looking faces and body shapes.

Those faces, that highlight a person’s characteristics are parts of caricature for sure, but regardless of how well executed the drawings are, they will mean nothing without context.

First of all, caricature is a type of visual communication.

Much like what other communi­cation media do, caricature carries a message from sender to receiver.

In other words, caricature must have a purpose; its intention should be clear when presented by one party to a wider audience.

But unlike other genres of visual communication, caricature is intend­ed to send humoristic and satirical messages with reference to topical or current information within the society it is presented to.

Needless to say, the term “humour” does not belong to graphic arts only.

It is also an element of literature, but since seeing is widely regarded as the most effective and permanent perception among human beings, graphic arts are the most affective medium in order to gain the benefits of humour.

Renowned painter Abidin Dino once stated stated, “ As a weapon, caricature is much more stronger than a poem or a painting. In order to reach masses, it should be realised that caricature is the short-cut in order to say something”.

Caricature is fierce, of­fensive, rebellious and at times destructive.

It is like a naughty boy of graphic arts who can assault anything he wants. This ferocity does not make one irritated because smart sense of humour and contextual brilliance is usually inherent in them.

Rather unfairly, caricature is often mistaken with graphic humour but the two are not similar.

The word “caricature” comes from “caricare” which means to load.

Caricature’s subjects are daily.

A social issue such as the potholes problem affecting Zimbabwean road networks, or a contemporary political issue may be­come the subject of caricature.

Though they in rare cases exhibit timelessness, caricatures are just valid for a short period.

Since the subjects vanish, because caricatures capture only a fleeting moment in specific socio-economic or political subjects, their jokes tend to vanish as well.

They may even become unrecognisable within a week.

Zimbabwe’s caricatures often appear in newspapers as editorial or political cartoons.

In Europe and the United States of America though, several caricature magazines that compete for the attention of readers include Uykusuz and Penguen in Turkey; Charlie Hebdo in France; Punch in England and for USA, Puck and Mad.

By contrast, graphic hu­mour does not deal with popular issues. Its subjects are not temporary. When one reads a political caricature, they have to be familiar with that context in order to understand the joke.

Graphic humour such as that contained in strip cartoons Hagar the Horrible and Andy Capp connects with the audience by basic semantic meanings; making them understandable globally.

Caricature and cartoons are nowadays considered as the same thing.

In some countries however caricature is still used for exaggerated face drawings only.

A caricature artist should be smart, sensible, wise and well equipped with the talent of wit.

He or she should follow every current event in the world and should have a wide variety of knowledge. As Turkish caricature artist Ramiz Gökçe mentioned, “No one should enter the profession of caricature without knowing the difference between an elephant’s tail and Churchill’s cigar; flower of aubergine and the Indonesian flag’’.

Caricature also contains psychological analyses.

A caricature artist examines the absurdness in social environment and makes psychological statements which are going to be transferred on paper. As Dutch caricature artist Peter Nieuwendijk stated, “Caricature is an artistic psychology”.

The tools of caricature are inking pen and ink.

With dipping the pen into the bottle, the ink is applied on paper.

The lines get thicker as it is pressed more. The combination of thin and thick lines gives the eye-catching struc­ture of a caricature.

A caricaturist typically avoids excessive lines which can shade the meaning of the caricature.

The lines and the meaning of a caricature are intertwined.

As a caricaturist in Zimbabwe for over 15 years, I have angered and annoyed many public figures with exaggerated drawings. It has not bothered me at all because the caricatures were not meant for them, the ‘infuriated parties’ were only subjects. The messages in the drawings were meant for the general public and for the sender (myself), it is only the opinion of the medium (newspaper employers) and the receiver (general public) that is significant.