Graphic Satire

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Henry Pyall's A Sore Throat, 1827

Graphic satire is the art of caricature presented in a printed image. Derived from the Italian word, caricare, to exaggerate or overload, the caricature distorts images, usually of people, to make a point or to create a comic effect.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries graphic satire enjoyed great popularity in Britain. Mary Dorothy George, author of the Catalog of Prints and Drawings of the British Museumand renowned expert on satirical prints, wrote that,

"Satire was the language of the age...In the eighteenth century there was a great vogue for satirical prints- political and social. This was the golden age of the English engraver...caricature shops had a popularity of their own. Their prints were virtually the only pictorial rendering of the flow of events, moods and fashions. Especially, they reflect the social attitudes of the day."

This was the time of the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. Rapid and significant changes in politics, economics, social structure, religious values, and scientific knowledge created uncertainty and anxiety among the public. The emerging managerial and professional classes that included politicians, lawyers, artists, academics, scientists and physicians rose in power and status, and became targets of public disquiet. Graphic satire was one means of expressing social anxiety that allowed criticism of the emerging elite. The most successful artists such as Thomas Rowlandson, James Gillray, and the Cruikshanks used the medium of the print to put forth their political, social and moral critiques.

Graphic Satire