The plumb pudding in danger. James Gillray, 1805. This cartoon shows William Pitt and Napoleon dividing the world between them.
The cartoon art began with the “caricature”, from the Italian caricare, to load or exaggerate – is a drawing that emphasizes the most striking features of its subject for comic effect. The great Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Annibale Carracci and Gian Lorenzo all drew caricatures. These were technichal exercises with the aim of defining the essence of a person in a few deft strokes of the pen.
In 1988 a group of cartoonists, collectors and lovers of the art form came together as The Cartoon Art Trust with the aim of founding a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, promoting and preserving the best of British cartoon art. After a decade of exhibiting in smaller venues, in February 2006 the Cartoon Museum opened to the public at its current home in central London, very near the British Museum. Explore the Cartoon Museum.
Future exhibition at the Cartoon Museum. World War II in Comics and cartoons. From 25 March to 12 July 2015.
Read in HCS – Manguinhos:
Xavier, Caco. Get serious about Aids! – humor and health:overviewing the cartoons on the I Bienal Internacional de Humor, 1997 . Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos [online]. 2001, vol.8, n.1, pp. 193-221. ISSN 0104-5970.
Caruso, Francisco and Silveira, Cristina. Comics for citizenship. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos [online]. 2009, vol.16, n.1, pp. 217-236. ISSN 0104-5970.
