 Cover of an 1833 edition | |
| Editor | Auguste Audibert |
|---|---|
| Categories | Political satire |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Founded | 1830 |
| Final issue | 1843 |
| Country | France |
| Based in | Paris |
| Language | French |
| ISSN | 1169-2502 |
La Caricature was a satirical weekly published French periodical that was distributed in Paris between 1830 and 1843 during the July Monarchy. Its cartoons repeatedly attacked King Louis Philippe, whom it typically depicted as a pear.
La Caricature morale, politique et littéraire was published from 1830 to 1843. Auguste Audibert was editor and Charles Philipon (1800–61) was director and main author. [1] Honoré de Balzac and Louis Desnoyers assisted Philipon in writing some of the magazines issues. Primary artists were Honoré Daumier and Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville with caricature contributions from many artists including Henry Monnier, Alexandre Decamps, Auguste Raffet, Paul Gavarni, Achille Devéria, Auguste Desperret, Eugène Forest, Benjamin Roubaud. The journal was founded after the censorship laws had been relaxed following the July Revolution of 1830 in which Louis Philippe came to power. It covered both politics and art. 251 issues appeared between 1830 and 1835, each of four pages, with two or three lithographs. [2]
Philipon was the owner of the largest printing house in Paris equipped with lithographic presses, and used them to print La Caricature and Le Charivari , another illustrated paper. He drew together a group of skilled artists who mostly worked for these two papers, through which they attacked the king and the system of government with growing violence. [3] The major contributors were Honoré Daumier (1808–79) and Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville (1803–47), but there were many others. [2] For example, a caricature by Jules David appeared in La Caricature of 31 May 1831. The king is depicted as an illusionist who uses the juste milieu and some poudre de non-intervention to make liberty and revolution vanish. [4]
In 1830–31 there were revolutionary uprisings in Italy. The Austrians intervened to suppress the revolts, and the French did nothing to prevent them. The Pope broke his promise to grant the rebels in the Papal States an amnesty. La Caricature published a cartoon that showed the Pope on his throne surrounded by corpses. [4] Similarly, Philipon published cartoons that associated the French government with that of Tsar Nicholas I when Russia suppressed a revolt in Poland. The fall of Warsaw was announced by Horace Sebastiani, the French foreign minister, as "L'ordre règne à Varsovie" (Order reigns in Warsaw). The phrase was used as a caption for one of the cartoons. [5]
The journal became increasingly vocal in its opposition to Louis-Philippe, and was seized more than twelve times. The publishers were prosecuted, and Philipon was jailed for a year. In 1835 the government passed legislation that forced La Caricature to cease publication. [2] The journal began publication again in 1838 and continued until 1843. [1] Writing in 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray talked of the "curious contest between the State and M. Philipon's little army." [3] Thackery wrote,
Half-a-dozen poor artists on the one side, and his Majesty Louis-Philippe, his august family, and the numberless placemen and supporters of his monarchy, on the other.... The King of the French suffered so much, his ministers were so mercilessly ridiculed, his family and his own remarkable figure drawn with such odious and grotesque resemblance, in fanciful attitudes, circumstances, and disguises, so ludicrously mean, and so often appropriate, that the King was obliged to descend into the lists and battle his ridiculous enemies in form. [6]
Drawings and lithographies were contributed by the following artists, among others:
Some of the authors of articles were:
Honoré-Victorin Daumier was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second Napoleonic Empire in 1870. He earned a living throughout most of his life producing caricatures and cartoons of political figures and satirizing the behavior of his countrymen in newspapers and periodicals, for which he became well known in his lifetime and is still known today. He was a republican democrat who attacked the bourgeoisie, the church, lawyers and the judiciary, politicians, and the monarchy. He was jailed for several months in 1832 after the publication of Gargantua, a particularly offensive and discourteous depiction of King Louis-Philippe. Daumier was also a serious painter, loosely associated with realism.
Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard was a prolific 19th century French illustrator and caricaturist who published under the pseudonym of Grandville. He has been called "the first star of French caricature's great age", and Grandville's book illustrations described as featuring "elements of the symbolic, dreamlike, and incongruous, and they retain a sense of social commentary." "His perverse vision sought the monster in everyone and took delight in the strangest and most pernicious transfigurement of the human shape ever produced by the Romantic imagination." The anthropomorphic vegetables and zoomorphic figures that populated his cartoons anticipated and influenced the work of generations of cartoonists and illustrators from John Tenniel, to Gustave Doré, to Félicien Rops, and Walt Disney. He has also been called a "proto-surrealist" and was greatly admired by André Breton and others in the movement.
Achille Jacques-Jean-Marie Devéria was a French painter and lithographer known for his portraits of famous writers and artists. His younger brother was the Romantic painter Eugène Devéria, and two of his six children were Théodule Devéria and Gabriel Devéria.
Le Charivari was an illustrated magazine published in Paris, France, from 1832 to 1937. It published caricatures, political cartoons and reviews. After 1835, when the government banned political caricature, Le Charivari began publishing satires of everyday life. The name refers to the folk practice of holding a charivari, a loud, riotous parade, to shame or punish wrongdoers.
Robert Macaire is a fictional character, an unscrupulous swindler, who appears in a number of French plays, films, and other works of art. In French culture he represents an archetypal villain. He was principally the creation of an actor, Frédérick Lemaître, who took the stock figure of "a ragged tramp, a common thief with tattered frock coat patched pants" and transformed him during his performances into "the dapper confidence man, the financial schemer, the juggler of joint-stock companies" that could serve to lampoon financial speculation and government corruption.
Events from the year 1833 in art.
Charles Philipon was a French lithographer, caricaturist and journalist. He was the founder and director of the satirical political journals La Caricature and of Le Charivari.
Jean-Pierre Dantan, known as Dantan the Younger, was a French portrait sculptor. His subjects include many famous figures from the realms of politics, music and the arts, and literature. He is said to be the inventor of the sculptural caricature.
Juste milieu is a term that has been used to describe centrist political philosophies that try to find a balance between extremes, and artistic forms that try to find a middle ground between the traditional and the modern. In the political sense it is most associated with the French July Monarchy (1830–1848), which ostensibly tried to strike a balance between autocracy and anarchy. The term has been used in both a positive and negative sense.
The Maison de Balzac is a writer's house museum in the former residence of French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). It is located in the 16th arrondissement at 47, rue Raynouard, Paris, France, and open daily except Mondays and holidays; admission to the house is free, but a fee is charged for its temporary exhibitions. The nearest métro and RER stations are Passy and Avenue du Président Kennedy.
Jean-Baptiste David was a French painter and lithographer. His illustrations appeared in many books and magazines. He was particularly known for his illustrations of contemporary Parisian fashions.
La Caricature was a satirical journal that was published in Paris, France, between 1880 and 1904. It had a lively and colorful layout, and made full use of the newly invented photogravure technology. Its focus was on social satire rather than political commentary. La Caricature covered the theater, news events, gossip and topical subjects such as the vote for women or seaside vacations. The founding editor, Albert Robida, left in 1892. The journal began to decline in quality, went through various changes of ownership and management, and eventually was merged with a rival tabloid.
The Society of the Rights of Man was a French republican association with Jacobin roots, formed during the July Revolution in 1830, replacing another republican association, the Society of the Friends of the People (France). It played a major role in the June riots of 1832 in Paris and the July Monarchy.
Paris during the reign of King Louis-Philippe (1830-1848) was the city described in the novels of Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo. Its population increased from 785,000 in 1831 to 1,053,000 in 1848, as the city grew to the north and west, while the poorest neighborhoods in the center became even more crowded.
Joseph Germain Mathieu Roubaud, called "Benjamin",, the son of Mathieu Aubert Roubaud and Rosalie Caillol, was a 19th-century French painter, lithographer and caricaturist.
Charles-Joseph Traviès de Villers, also known simply as Traviès, was a Swiss-born French painter, lithographer, and caricaturist whose work appeared regularly in Le Charivari and La Caricature. His Panthéon Musical was one of the most famous and widely reproduced musical caricatures of the 19th century. His younger brother was the painter and illustrator Édouard Traviès.
Philadelphe-Maurice Alhoy was a 19th-century French journalist, writer and playwright, born and died in Paris.
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Media related to La Caricature (1830–1843) at Wikimedia Commons