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• Students will explore the similarities and differences between characters and caricatures in art and literature. • Students will consider how and why caricatures are constructed. • Students will create a cast of caricatures and bring them to life through a screenplay or other performative presentation.
Art:21 Web Site • Projecting Fictions—Insurrection!... – Kara Walker interview • The Melodrama of Gone with the Wind – Kara Walker interview • Storytelling, Characters, & Color – Trenton Doyle Hancock interview • Heroines – Margaret Kilgallen interview • To Friend and Foe – Margaret Kilgallen art work • Hand-painted Trainyard Photos – Margaret Kilgallen art work • Humor, Personas, & Yiddish Theater – Eleanor Antin interview • After Black (To See or Not See), Before Black(To See or Not to See) – Michael Ray Charles art work Additional Web Sites • http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/c/caricature.html Definition of caricature and examples of caricatures throughout history • http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/intro.htm Celebrity caricature in America • http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/cartoon/cartoons.html America in caricature, 1765-1865 • http://www.pritchettcartoons.com/caricature.htm Examples of famous caricatures past and present • http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/970.shtml Color--Caste--Denomination by Emily Dickinson Classroom Materials • magazines and newspapers • fabric • paper • scissors • glue • other materials or tools for creating scenery, costumes, & props
• What is the difference between a character and a caricature? • Where do you find examples of characters and caricatures? • What are the reasons an artist or author employs the use of caricature in their work? • Do caricatures resort to stereotyping? How might caricatures be used to critique stereotypes? • How is the idea of a caricature related to the notion of satire or burlesque?
Distinguishing Caricatures Have students discuss the differences between caricatures and characters. What is a character in literature? What is a caricature? How do you know when a portrait represents a caricature or a character? Introduce students to the work of visual artists who incorporate characters and caricatures into their art including Season Two artists Kara Walker, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Eleanor Antin, and Season One artist Margaret Kilgallen. Using the artists' video segments, interviews, and art works on the Art:21 Web site, ask students to identify which figures might be considered caricatures and which might be considered characters. Have students defend their opinions by describing specific elements within the work. Ask students to describe what is being caricaturized in the artwork and for what purpose. What internal qualities does the artist attempt to make visible through caracaturization? Are they humorous? Mean-spirited? Provocative? (Time: One to one and a half 45 minute sessions) Constructing Caricatures Ask students to bring in cartoons or images from newspapers and/or magazines that could be classified as caricatures. In addition, show students examples from historical, political, or celebrity Web sites: • http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/c/caricature.html Definition of caricature and examples of caricatures throughout history • http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/intro.htm Celebrity caricature in America • http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/cartoon/cartoons.html America in caricature, 1765-1865 • http://www.pritchettcartoons.com/caricature.htm Examples of famous caricatures past and present Consider showing students a realistic portrait or photograph of someone next to his or her caricature. How is a caricature constructed? What external characteristics are exaggerated or distorted (for example gestures, facial features, expression, clothes, manner of speaking)? What internal qualities are being caricaturized (power, weakness, fear, arrogance, love, anger, poverty, wealth, etc.)? How are the external characteristics related to the internal qualities? (Time: One 45 minute session) Kara Walker & Gone with the Wind Read passages from Gone with the Wind. List some of the characters from this novel. Do they remind you of any of the figures in Kara Walker’s work? How does Walker exaggerate or distort these characters to turn them into caricatures? Why does Walker choose Gone with the Wind as a source of inspiration for her work? Are any of the Gone with the Wind characters based on racist stereotypes? Does Walker’s work perpetuate these stereotypes or critique them? How? Discuss the following statements by Kara Walker: “I had some built up prejudices against Gone with the Wind... [But I] started to read the book, and was thrilled with how engrossing the story was, and how grotesque it was at the same time...the romance of it, the storytelling. It was so rich and epic and that was what I hadn’t expected. I hadn’t expected to be titillated in the way that stories like that are meant to titillate. And at the same time it was so much fodder for the work I wanted to do.” “My expectation was to go in and be sort of horrified and disgusted with representations of happy slaves and ignorant slaves, the mammy figure...and the distressing part was always being caught up in the voice of the heroine, Scarlet O’Hara…that unexpected situation of kind of waiting to be the heroine and yet wanting to kill the heroine and the same time.” Have students choose one of the characters from Walker’s images and write a monologue. The monologue should address the stereotypical characteristics presented in the character and possess a unique voice, as well as address the character as a participant of a particular history. (Time: Two 45 minute sessions) Creating a Cast of Caricatures The artist Trenton Doyle Hancock creates characters and represents them in his paintings and prints using abstract qualities such as color and tone. Discuss Hancock’s characters Torpedo Boy, Loid, Painter and The Mounds, and have students identify where they visually see these characters represented in paintings and how his method of description is similar to or different from a writer who describes characters using abstract words. Read Emily Dickinson’s poem Color—Caste—Denomination and ask students to make connections between Dickinson’s use of color and meaning in her poetry with Hancock’s imagery in his paintings. Have students select a specific personality trait to caricaturize and create a caricature that expresses that trait. Have students consider what features or expressions can be exaggerated to represent this trait? What clothes would this trait wear? What colors, patterns, or symbols can be included to express this trait? How would this trait speak, gesture, and walk? What music would accompany this trait when it enters a room? Divide students into groups. Bringing each of their individual caricatures together to create a cast of caricatures, have students write a screenplay based on a possible interaction between each of the different caricatures. Have students consider a motivation for each character, how they might come into conflict with each other, and how their internal qualities will be communicated. Have students create costumes, scenery, props, and introduce musical elements to enhance their production. Dramatize the screenplay for class and have students guess the personality trait each caricature represents. (Time: Five 45 minute sessions to long term project)
• Have students demonstrated an understanding of the differences between a character and a caricature in art and in literature? • Have students articulated how and why caricatures are constructed? • Have students created a cast of caricatures and performed them through a screenplay? Find out how this lesson plan correlates to your state's education standards! On PBS TeacherSource do a search for "Art in the 21st Century" and click on the Standards Match icon.
Other lessons that could be combined with this lesson to form a longer unit or an extended course of study include: Re-making Myths Systems & Styles The Face of Fame Honoring Heroes and History Did you use this lesson or generate your own activities based on ideas inspired by the lesson? Submit student art work, new lesson plans, and your comments to Art:21 and have them posted on the site. Help the Online Lesson Library grow!
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