Characters and Caricaturas

A dense crowd of profile heads fills the upper plate — over a hundred faces, each subtly distinct in jaw, brow, and expression, demonstrating the infinite variation of observable human character. Below, a lower register contrasts these naturalistic heads with frank grotesques: bulbous noses, jutting chins, slack mouths — the stock physical deformities that defined caricatura as a distinct mode. Hogarth's argument is taxonomic: character, drawn from life and moral observation, differs fundamentally from caricature, which exaggerates a single feature for comic or satirical effect. The distinction mattered because Hogarth resented rivals like Arthur Pond who popularized Italian caricature prints. This etching doubles as a manifesto and a direct visual footnote to Henry Fielding's preface to Joseph Andrews. It sits squarely in the English print-satire lineage — from Hogarth through Gillray and Rowlandson — whose sequential compositions and character typologies would directly seed the comic strip tradition.