The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Cartoon Appreciation Week

Well, Cartoonist Day is over for another year and it couldn't happen soon enough for me. But it's allegedly Cartoon Appreciation Week, and to celebrate I'll put up some random cartoonlike things that float my boat and you might like too.


This is by the 19th century French scupltor Jean-Piere Dantan, known as Dantan Jeune, who sculpted many serious portraits of contemporary politicians, artists, writers, musicians, and such. He also did caricatures of them, most of them pretty dang wonderful (though not as fine as Daumier's). This is Hector Berlioz, the great romantic composer who was slightly nuts and had one of the great heads of red hair in history. It's from the book "Dantan Jeune, Caricatures et portraits de la societe romantique". My French isn't so hot, but looking at all the charming little gargoyle heads filling its pages make me wish I knew the first thing about sculpting.

2 comments:

Mike Rhode said...

That's very, very cool. What is it with cartoonists wanting to be sculptors though?

Let's think about a list - Daumier, Oliphant, Conrad, Goldberg...

richardcthompson said...

Rowland Emmet, Searle, Steadman, Scarfe...

It's just an extension of the medium, or something like that.