Caricatures,

…, as I’ve surely said, I find captivating. There’s this whole thing about exaggerating certain features of a person’s face, but only sufficiently so that a likeness is presented that you and I can recognise at once. Great when it’s done right. Last week, I found in the city library this book by Derren Brown, containing some seventy of his portraits. He calls them portraits because, he says, he paints people as he sees them. We would call them caricatures. That certainly shows a particular talent for spotting the ridiculous, but I wonder what the world in general looks through Mr. Brown’s eyes.

As an example, here’s a miniature of his portrait of Julianne Moore. Mr. Brown takes his inspiration from the famous German caricaturist Sebastian Krüger. Both use oils and work in a manner that makes their grotesque faces seem to leap off the canvas.

Julianne Moore, Derren Brown

picture source

And here’s the book itself, at the Amazon site.