Cartoon Introduction

cartoon [Ital., cartone = paper], either of two types of drawings: in the fine arts, a preliminary sketch for a more complete work; in journalism, a humorous or satirical drawing.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• 1   
• Cartoons in the Fine Arts
• INTRODUCTION
• In the fine arts, the cartoon is a full-sized preliminary drawing for a work to be executed afterward in fresco, oil, mosaic, stained glass, or tapestry. Glass and mosaic are cut exactly according to the patterns taken from the cartoons, while in tapestry the cartoon is inserted beneath the warp to serve as a guide. In fresco painting, the lines of the cartoon are perforated and transferred to the plaster surface by pouncing (dusting with powder through the perforations). Italian Renaissance painters made very complete cartoons, and such works as Raphael's cartoons for the Sistine Chapel tapestries (Victoria and Albert Mus.) are considered masterpieces.
• 2 
• Cartoons in Journalism
• INTRODUCTION
• In England in 1843 a series of drawings appeared in Punch magazine that parodied the fresco cartoons submitted in a competition for the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament. In this way cartoon, in journalistic parlance, came to mean any single humorous or satirical drawing employing distortion for emphasis, often accompanied by a caption or a legend. Cartoons, particularly editorial or political cartoons, make use of the elements of caricature.

3 

• Bibliography
• INTRODUCTION
• See studies by D. Low (1953), O. Lancaster (1964); R. E. Shikes, The Indignant Eye(1969); J. Geipel (1972); M. Horn, ed., The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons (1980); A. Wood, Great Cartoonists and Their Art (1987); V. S. Navasky, The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power (2013).
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