Thoughts That Cure Radically: Infinite Jest Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine

Caricature, a corollary to the grotesque, is an apt expression for our moment. Disparaging our betters (and not so much better) is a universal joy, highlighted in, ‘Infinite Jest Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beginning with, as the title claims, Leonardo and ending in the present, the exhibition presents a large survey of the art of caricature. While important to exhibit examples from Renaissance Europe, ‘Infinite Jest’ is strongest with work from Europe in the 18^th and 19^th Century, and stronger still with British examples. Unsurprisingly, the British, who have never had a rich visual tradition, shine the brightest with the topical, literary form of caricature. Two Englishman, James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson, nearly exact contemporaries, transcend the cartoonist label and stand out as strong visual artists in their own right. Eviscerating the politicians, social mores and habits of their day, Gillray and Rowlandson’s work transcends the particulars of their time and place and speak to the timelessness, and viciousness, of human folly. Many of the other works have an edge of contemporary hysteria. One anonymous British example titled, ‘Top and Tail’ shows a large hairdo atop an exposed woman’s hind-quarters that, as explained in the exhibition, was an 18^th century way of saying that the woman was all ass and no brain. Additionally, certain prints are interesting for their historical curiosity. A print by Rowlandson shows Napoleon as a spider entangling foreign bug-like nationalities in his web. While no longer current, the print speaks to perennial pernicious political machinations. Given the political and economic climate the rest of the ‘99%’ currently lives in, this exhibition helps put our own societal problems in perspective. Mysteriously, knowing that European nobles, dandies, ladies and burghers were vain, silly, venal corruptible degenerates affords a calm respite from our own trivial era. Art, among other duties, reminds us what Jonathon Swift, the ultimate caricaturist, cautioned:

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.