Laugh Lines: Caricaturing Painting in Nineteenth-Century France is the first major study of Salon caricature, a kind of graphic art criticism in which press artists drew comic versions of contemporary painting and sculpture for publication in widely consumed journals and albums. Salon caricature began with a few tentative lithographs in the 1840s and within a few decades, no Parisian exhibition could open without appearing in warped, incisive, and hilarious miniature in the pages of the illustrated press.
This broad survey of Salon caricature examines little-known graphic artists and unpublished amateurs alongside major figures like Édouard Manet, puts anonymous jokesters in dialogue with the essays of Baudelaire, and holds up the material qualities of a 10-centime album to the most ambitious painting of the 19th-century. This archival study unearths colorful caricatures that have not been reproduced until now, drawing back the curtain on a robust culture of comedy around fine art and its reception in 19th-century France.
- ISBN10 1350186856
- ISBN13 9781350186859
- Publish Date 10 March 2022 (first published 24 February 2022)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Bloomsbury Visual Arts
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English