Wednesday 11 March 2015

Chaucerian Caricatures.

Sorry to disappoint but you're not going to get some highbrow discourse on The Canterbury Tales from me....others far more learned have already got that covered. Instead carved faces from Canterbury. To my mind these put me in mind of the pilgrims so brilliantly described by Chaucer and I can see echoes of them in Hogarth, the wonderful 18th century cartoons lampooning the "good and the great" of the day, The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and more lately the Spitting Image puppets. I feel that they were there to amuse but it's only my pet theory....for all I know they may have been issuing a serious moral message. It will have to remain a mystery.

The Wife of Bath perhaps?


This figure could have graced the cover of Punch in its heyday.


The devil with lady bumps really?! Not sure whether this is misogynist in the extreme or taking the proverbial out of Satan. Whichever it is I enjoyed the visual comedy of the pieces.



Arilx

2 comments:

  1. I think you could be right there....hadn't thought of that possibility!
    Arilx

    ReplyDelete

Marching on

 Well March is being a bit of a madam isn't she. One minute she's teasing us with blue skies and a sun with some warmth in it and th...