La caricature anglaise face à la France en Révolution (1789-1802)

British counter-revolutionary caricature, 1789-1802. British caricature developed throughout the 18th Century, establishing a symbolic repertory and a comic vocabulary which were immediately associated in reaction to the French Revolution. In order to understand the techniques of humour aimed at producing laughter as well as fear, we can use the principles studied by Francis Grosse in the essay on comic painting published in 1788 as an annexe to his Traité sur les principes de la caricature. According to him, the technique of laughter is based on compartmentalized engravings and aroused by scatological references, by oppositions, symbolic inversions or anachronisms in clothing. The fertile imagination of the caricaturists used all these techniques to discredit in a gale of laughter both the French revolutionary movement and its British supporters.Dupuy Pascal. La caricature anglaise face à la France en Révolution (1789-1802). In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°32, 2000. Le rire, sous la direction de Lise Andries . pp. 307-320