With this, V. S. Ramachandran takes the mystery out of caricature:
Consider the way in which a skilled cartoonist produces a caricature of a famous face, say Nixon’s. What he does (unconsciously) is to take the average of all faces, subtract the average from Nixon’s face (to get the difference between Nixon’s face and all others) and then amplify the differences to produce a caricature. The final result, of course, is a drawing that is even more Nixon-like than the original.
(V. S. Ramachandran is quoted from page 25 of The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power, by Victor S. Navasky. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)
For a brief biography of V. S. Ramachandran, click here. For images of or relating to V. S. Ramachandran, click here.
For a brief biography of Victor S. Navasky, click here. For images of or relating to Victor S. Navasky, click here.
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