Pictorial Irony, Parody, and Pastiche: Comic Interpictoriality in the Arts of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Abstract

In this timely new book, Margaret Rose, leading theorist of parody, has turned her attention to humour and ambiguity in visual art. Given how parodic and satirical critique has flourished in formal art as well as in new media since the 1980s, historical and theoretical perspectives are certainly needed and Rose is well placed to undertake the task. Having already published in German on the relationship between verbal and visual parody (Parodie, Intertextualität, Interbildlichkeit, 2006), she sets out here to integrate her earlier perspectives on literary parody with a new focus on pictorial art. As her title indicates, she chiefly addresses European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also notices Americans such as Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, and Cindy Sherman’s photo art, as well as some contemporary Japanese and Chinese artists, including (briefly) Ai Weiwei 艾未未 and Yue Minjun 岳敏君. It is a delight that her range extends to children’s book illustrators such as Wilhelm Busch (133–5) and Quentin Blake (141–2).