Sunday 31 July 2022

Herbert Beerbohm makes an adjustment

A double caricature of Herbert, looking large and heroic, and Max, looking small and dapper




This is Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the actor, and Max Beerbohm, the writer and caricaturist. They were half-brothers; Herbert the older by nineteen years. When Herbert became an actor in 1876, he added 'Tree' (translation of Bohm) to his name. According to Max, this was because he wanted a "shoutable monosyllable, for purposes of applause."

I really like Max's caricatures (this isn't one of his best, perhaps because he was fond of his brother.) He gave a very useful recipe for them, which also applies to a certain kind of comedy writing:

The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment, in the most beautiful manner.



A caricature of Aubrey Beardsley, which it seems to me does all the things the quote describes.
Aubrey Beardsley

 

Saturday 2 July 2022

J.B. Priestley bubbles with delight.

Here is J.B. Priestley: man of letters; author of 'An Inspector Calls', 'Dangerous Corner' and many other such examinations of the nature of morality and time. 



Would you be inclined to describe him, do you think, as a flibbertigibbet on a weathercock? Me neither. But I tell you who would - J.B. Priestley. Here he is having reached number 61 in a list of things that cause him delight: