Caricature is a sharp and humorous art that strengthens democracy, or cries out for its absence, and is strengthened with freedom of thought and critical expression. Marcel Marceau and Charles Chaplin immortalized it with their silences. It is inspired by the social and political daily life of a community. His brushes are: image, satire, irony and truthfulness. This is how heroes and antiheroes, vices of politicians and powerful people, corruption and attacks against human rights and values are colored. Virtues and qualities are also exalted. His mocking spirit denounces with graphic, audiovisual or written illustrations, to cause an impact full of creativity and ingenuity.
The stumbling block lies in the offense that affects its protagonists due to the public laughter generated by their ridiculed actions or omissions, which has even led to government censorship or terrorist acts. However, as part of a guaranteed free expression, it is subject to legal restrictions that protect against slander and insult.
Villegas Editores has just published, in a luxurious three-volume edition, an illustrated investigation by the well-known teacher Beatriz González, an admirable Colombian painter and sculptor. For 35 years, advised by a solid team, she consulted and analyzed primary sources to leave the ‘History of caricature in Colombia from independence to 2020’ to the country. The reader enjoys page by page appreciating the creative fantasy of our artists and their ethical mission to give away. With their personal styles, they take us through the paths of their comical occurrences to discover parts of the history of Colombia during those times.
In the first volume, which goes from independence to 1860, grotesque pre-Columbian gestures are shown, demons in colonial engravings, baroque humorous figures, pasquines, allegories and epigrams, until arriving in 1820 at the birth of the political cartoon, the costumbrismo of the beginning of the Republic and its indissoluble relationship with journalism. The rivalries between Santander and Bolívar spread, illustrated.
The second volume, which runs until 1936, highlights the influence of French graphic humor, the happy appearance of Pepe Gómez, who suffered the continuous scolding of his brother Laureano, and Ricardo Rendón, recognized for the firmness and strength of his lines.
Harassment between liberals and conservatives was the sarcasm of the day and “violence between enemy mobs still wants to make the effort to laugh.” Both artists marked their time as talented cartoonists of the miseries of the 20th century.
The third volume is updated until 2020, as a recent history of liberalism and conservatism, dictatorship, violence, migrations and displacements due to war, in short, the cartoon “with blood and fire.” The social caricature, fashion, art and music, is used to evade repression until the National Front restored press freedom. Hernán Merino, the black humor man, engaged in campaigns against electoral abstention, made García Márquez caricatures with his ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, announcing the ‘boom’ of Latin American literature. The era of Pepón, Caballero and Osuna did not wait. Mingote and Chapete, in “the big press.” The photomontages appear, the penless writings of Jaime Garzón. You get to Betto, Vladdo, Matador, Samper and humor on social networks.
As Benjamin Villegas, the editor, affirms, “these books are the story of Colombia told by the opposition and, therefore, more true than many others.” Good reading during this pandemic confinement that does not distinguish some days from others!
MARTHA SENN
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