The New World of Pier Leone Ghezzi

Abstract

The graphic satires of Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674–1755) represent a high point in the tradition of caricature in Italy. The eighteenth-century biographer Leone Pascoli characterized Ghezzi as “taking delight in making exaggerated portraits” that, although often based on a single impression, created striking likenesses. Pascoli's simple statement approaches a definition of caricature: a genre in which the prominent features of an individual are stressed by exaggeration for the purpose of immediate recognition and spontaneous amusement. Pascoli's statement both establishes the intimate relationship between portraiture and caricature and shows that the boundary between these two approaches to physiognomy is sharply delineated. Caricature can function as such only by retaining portrait characteristics that allow for ready identification of the subject, but it departs from simple description in an eccentric way. Indeed, the distorted elements call attention to themselves, and, rather than confusing the viewer, they serve as the basis for identification.