Sense of Humor

15 Jul 2018 — 6 Jan 2019 at The National Gallery of Art in Landover, United States

1 August 2018

Leonardo was the first artist to explore facial appearance for its own sake. It is doubtful that these drawings were caricatures of actual individuals. Rather, they represent types. Some suggest an attempt to capture the physical manifestation of an emotion and relate to figures in his paintings. Most, however, seem to arise from the imagination, with no specific source or purpose. This pair of studies was surely created in Leonardo’s studio, probably by his most faithful pupil, Francesco Melzi. Francesco Melzi, after Leonardo da Vinci, Two Grotesque Heads, 1510s?, pen and brown ink, Gift of Mrs. Edward Fowles, 1980

Leonardo was the first artist to explore facial appearance for its own sake. It is doubtful that these drawings were caricatures of actual individuals. Rather, they represent types. Some suggest an attempt to capture the physical manifestation of an emotion and relate to figures in his paintings. Most, however, seem to arise from the imagination, with no specific source or purpose. This pair of studies was surely created in Leonardo’s studio, probably by his most faithful pupil, Francesco Melzi. Francesco Melzi, after Leonardo da Vinci, Two Grotesque Heads, 1510s?, pen and brown ink, Gift of Mrs. Edward Fowles, 1980

Humor may be fundamental to human experience, but its expression in painting and sculpture has been limited. Instead, prints, as the most widely distributed medium, and drawings, as the most private, have been the natural vehicles for comic content.

nDrawn from the National Gallery of Art’s collection, Sense of Humor celebrates this incredibly rich though easily overlooked tradition through works including Renaissance caricatures, biting English satires, and 20th-century comics. The exhibition includes major works by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Jacques Callot, William Hogarth, James Gillray, Francisco de Goya, and Honoré Daumier, as well as later examples by Alexander Calder, Red Grooms, Saul Steinberg, Art Spiegelman, and the Guerrilla Girls.

The exhibition is curated by Jonathan Bober, Andrew W. Mellon senior curator of prints and drawings; Judith Brodie, curator and head of the department of American and modern prints and drawings; and Stacey Sell, associate curator, department of old master drawings, all National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art preserves, collects, exhibits, and fosters understanding of works of art at the highest possible museum and scholarly standards.

Location

Landover, United States

In Greek mythology, Silenus was the son of Pan, guardian of the young Bacchus and steady companion in his entourage. In Renaissance art he is usually depicted as an older human figure inebriated and mocked by satyrs, and thus a comical emblem of what happens when man surrenders reason to the senses. In René Boyvin’s earlier interpretation of a similar subject, hanging on this wall, Bacchus is an idealized figure, impaired but imposing. A half-century later, with a naturalism as accurate as it is funny, Ribera presents Silenus as a sloppy drunk, plied by satyrs and ridiculed even by a donkey. Jusepe de Ribera, The Drunken Silenus, 1628, etching and engraving, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2004

The playbill in the lower left reveals that the troupe is holding its last performance before a new law takes effect banning unlicensed theater. Much of the humor here derives from contrasts between the actresses’ roles as Roman goddesses and the earthy realities of their lives. The central figure, playing the chaste goddess Diana, strikes a pose reminiscent of classical sculptures depicting Diana as a huntress. Here the lack of bow and arrow renders the gesture meaningless and the actress uses one hand to hitch up her shift to her thighs. Contemporary associations of actresses with prostitution would have added to the irony of her role. All around Diana humble props and activities strip away the illusions of the stage: in the lower right, for example, Juno practices her lines, her book resting on a makeshift noisemaker, while another goddess mends her stocking. William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn, 1738, etching and engraving, Rosenwald Collection, 1944

The inscription says, in essence, you can send an ass to school but it will not come back a horse.Pieter van der Heyden, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Ass at School, 1557, engraving, Gift of Mrs. Jane C. Carey as an addition to the Addie Burr Clark Memorial Collection, 1958

In Greek mythology, Silenus was the son of Pan, guardian of the young Bacchus and steady companion in his entourage. In Renaissance art he is usually depicted as an older human figure inebriated and mocked by satyrs, and thus a comical emblem of what happens when man surrenders reason to the senses. In René Boyvin’s earlier interpretation of a similar subject, hanging on this wall, Bacchus is an idealized figure, impaired but imposing. A half-century later, with a naturalism as accurate as it is funny, Ribera presents Silenus as a sloppy drunk, plied by satyrs and ridiculed even by a donkey. Jusepe de Ribera, The Drunken Silenus, 1628, etching and engraving, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2004
The playbill in the lower left reveals that the troupe is holding its last performance before a new law takes effect banning unlicensed theater. Much of the humor here derives from contrasts between the actresses’ roles as Roman goddesses and the earthy realities of their lives. The central figure, playing the chaste goddess Diana, strikes a pose reminiscent of classical sculptures depicting Diana as a huntress. Here the lack of bow and arrow renders the gesture meaningless and the actress uses one hand to hitch up her shift to her thighs. Contemporary associations of actresses with prostitution would have added to the irony of her role. All around Diana humble props and activities strip away the illusions of the stage: in the lower right, for example, Juno practices her lines, her book resting on a makeshift noisemaker, while another goddess mends her stocking. William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn, 1738, etching and engraving, Rosenwald Collection, 1944
The inscription says, in essence, you can send an ass to school but it will not come back a horse.Pieter van der Heyden, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Ass at School, 1557, engraving, Gift of Mrs. Jane C. Carey as an addition to the Addie Burr Clark Memorial Collection, 1958

The playbill in the lower left reveals that the troupe is holding its last performance before a new law takes effect banning unlicensed theater. Much of the humor here derives from contrasts between the actresses’ roles as Roman goddesses and the earthy realities of their lives. The central figure, playing the chaste goddess Diana, strikes a pose reminiscent of classical sculptures depicting Diana as a huntress. Here the lack of bow and arrow renders the gesture meaningless and the actress uses one hand to hitch up her shift to her thighs. Contemporary associations of actresses with prostitution would have added to the irony of her role. All around Diana humble props and activities strip away the illusions of the stage: in the lower right, for example, Juno practices her lines, her book resting on a makeshift noisemaker, while another goddess mends her stocking. William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn, 1738, etching and engraving, Rosenwald Collection, 1944
The inscription says, in essence, you can send an ass to school but it will not come back a horse.Pieter van der Heyden, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Ass at School, 1557, engraving, Gift of Mrs. Jane C. Carey as an addition to the Addie Burr Clark Memorial Collection, 1958
In Greek mythology, Silenus was the son of Pan, guardian of the young Bacchus and steady companion in his entourage. In Renaissance art he is usually depicted as an older human figure inebriated and mocked by satyrs, and thus a comical emblem of what happens when man surrenders reason to the senses. In René Boyvin’s earlier interpretation of a similar subject, hanging on this wall, Bacchus is an idealized figure, impaired but imposing. A half-century later, with a naturalism as accurate as it is funny, Ribera presents Silenus as a sloppy drunk, plied by satyrs and ridiculed even by a donkey. Jusepe de Ribera, The Drunken Silenus, 1628, etching and engraving, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2004

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