Historical Background of Cartooning PDF

**  HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF CARTOONING** The word 'cartoon' originated from the Italian word '*cartone'* meaning 'cardboard paper' or large paper. They are pictorial sketches (comical drawings) that are humorous or satirical. It is most times published in magazines, periodicals or newspapers featu...

**  HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF CARTOONING** The word 'cartoon' originated from the Italian word '*cartone'* meaning 'cardboard paper' or large paper. They are pictorial sketches (comical drawings) that are humorous or satirical. It is most times published in magazines, periodicals or newspapers featuring socio -economic or political issues. The word cartoon was initially used describe any drawing published in a periodical, that makes its own point, with or without a caption. The uniqueness of a cartoon can be clearly distinguished from an illustration or sketch, in that the cartoon strip or comic strip usually tells a story and often appears in periodical publications, whereas an illustration simply illuminates a scene or point accompanying an extended text in a publication. The term was initially used by painters for paste boards, which were full-sized preliminary drawing executed as scamps (rough sketches) on paper in preparation for later transfer to surfaces, which may be a ceiling, a large canvas or a wall for paintings, frescoes or tapestries. It was an essential element in the completion of stained-glass designs as well as frescoes in Italians. **Caricature** The word (caricature / caricatura was derived from Italian caricare" meaning (loaded portrait), which refers to distorted, humorous or exaggerated pictures drawings, or any other representations that exaggerate particular facial or physical features of an individual. Before the introduction of the term "cartoon" in the modern sense, all forms of humorous drawings were known as caricature. There were many allegorical and fantastical drawings by artists at different periods of history, just as there was an element of caricaturing in works of Leonardo da Vinci (who sourced people with deformity to draw). However, modern caricaturing can be said to have originated at the end of the 16^th^ c in the Carracci school in Bologna, where students drew pictures of visitors in the concept of animate and inanimate objects, a feat credited to Annibale Carracci and Augustin Carracci. William Hogarth was the first to mass produce cartoons and criticism of social vises of his time, through his work titled: "*Harlot Progress",* and anothe*r "Rake Progress".* The spread of these works which were pace setters for future works, was made possible by the development of printmaking and printing. Charles Philipon was the first to produce cartoons for comic weekly, and was also renowned for the series of his work that depict the head of the king as a pear. Another caricaturist of repute at the time was also Leone Ghezzi. Cartooning however assumed a new meaning in 1840, and the word started being used for humorous drawings, at the entries of the exhibition of cartoons organized by Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert, to generate designs for decoration for the new British House of Parliament. Many of the entries in the competition were humorous, naughty and ridiculous. The first picture to be called a cartoon was John Leech's 1843 drawing in the 'Punch' newspaper in Britain, a series of satires on political issues of the time, Earlier than this, in Britain, William Hogarth (1697-1764) had established a reputation as the first political cartoonist, while, in Spain and France, Francisco Goya (1746-1828) and Honore Daumier (1808-1879) respectively, used the medium to launch vicious and satirical attacks on the socio-political practices which they considered repulsive to public sense of decency at their time. Honore Daumier was considered as the father of caricaturing and animation for his sharp use of cartooning for social commentary. During the 20^th^ century, the general course of 'pictorial comedy' was shifted by the First World War. Political cartoons during and after the war were extremely biased while the cartoons about the war itself tended provide comic relief, which lessens the pain of the people, leading to an increase in the audience for humorous publications after the war. The most interesting features of cartoons and caricature in the first half of the 20^th^ century was the establishment of 'one-line-joke' (a 'joke' without word often in two or more frames, which economizes of language) and the 'pictorial-joke' without words with great diversity of styles of drawing. Cartoon got to an advanced stage in America, where after imitating the European style, produced renowned cartoonists like Thomas Nast, who cartooned and drew pictures of news events. in the 'Harper's Weekly' (1857). His cartoons about the U.S civil war published on September 3, 1864, put him in the first rank of the U.S. cartoonists. Nast's drawings were dynamic, simple and humorous. Like illustration, the growth and development of cartooning and caricaturing were facilitated by advances in printing and the computing system.