Top 10 – Political Works Of Art

top 10 political works of art

10. An Excrescence, A Fungus: Alas A Toadstool Upon A Dunghill – James Gillray, 1791

james gillray

James Gillray was apprenticed to an engraver and in 1778, he enrolled in the newly founded Royal Academy of Art. It was here that he developed his unique caricature style. He began doing satires at around that same time, and soon began the foremost relationship of his life, with Mrs Humphrey, who would publish his prints. He would live over her print shop until he died. This particular political caricature depicts William Pitt as a political mushroom engrafting itself upon the Crown in the form of a dunghill. In the public arena, Pitt frequently proved a ripe subject for the satirical eye of the caricaturist. As a result of the Regency crisis, when King George III temporarily lost his reason, Pitt was increasingly portrayed as an ambitious manipulator intent on curtailing the power of the monarchy.

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