Caricature is a simple memorable drawing accompanied by a short satirical comment that is highly entertaining and rich with implications. Its aim is to encourage a reconsideration and recreation of reality to secure a better kind of life.
 

History
The ancient Egyptians may be credited with the earliest manifestations of this art, which was used to ridicule and criticize despotic government. Pharaonic artists used animals and simple symbols to express different views about different monarchs. An ancient Egyptian estragon shows a caricature of cats and mice fighting together, the king of the mice mounting a chariot pulled by two female dogs, and attacking a fort guarded by cats. Probably the outcome of a specific significant event at the time it was produced, this caricature mocks a minor enemy who must have dared to challenge a mightier and more powerful lord.

Ancient Egyptian artists had a corrective purpose in portraying social ills. Another estragon shows a hippopotamus seated high on a tree, while an eagle tries to climb up the tree using a ladder.

Though simple and indirect, the criticism leveled by ancient Egyptian artists at various forms of authority was sharp and effective, as may be illustrated by another caricature of a fox tending a herd of goats or a wolf guarding a group of geese.

Caricature was also known in ancient Greece. Both Aristotle and Aristophanes refer to a character that drew satirical portraits and was said to have been tortured to death as a result.

In the modern world caricature gained popularity in Holland in the early seventeenth century, and was then popularized in England in the early eighteenth century when it was used as a tool of political satire. William Hogarth is particularly noted for his satirical cartoons, which portray that period in English history. Indeed, his work paved the way for formally instituting the art of caricature. Thomas Rolandson and James Gillray are two of the most noted figures in this area with their caricatures, which attack political opponents. They used to produce black-and-white illustrations that were then hand-painted and sold to bookstores. At that time, the works of the two artists had a primarily political role.

In Italy, there were early attempts to portray hell comically in a way that foreshadows Surrealism. A number of historians consider Leonardo da Vinci to be the father of Italian caricature.

In France, the art of caricature developed in the nineteenth century with the appearance of the first comic magazine and a daily in 1830 in which Honoré Daumier put vivid and subtle cartoons expressing opposition to the government. The artist had to serve a prison term for his satirical portrayal of Louis Philippe and the aristocracy. He was also the first to use caricature as an independent form of advertising.

In the Soviet Union, caricature was mainly associated with politics. It played a role in instigating the October revolution and had a considerable influence at the time of World War II.

In America, the art developed greatly in the early twentieth century through comic books and strips that appeared in various magazines and newspapers.

But while the ancient Egyptians were the first to design caricature and use it to criticize the government, the Arab world in modern times lagged behind in this area and was only content to draw on European influences. The earliest Arab contributor to the field is journalist Yaqub Sannu' who issued an amateurish-looking newspaper entitled Abu Naddara (the man wearing spectacles), and used captioned pictures in his cartoons. Since this clumsy beginning, other more creative artists have appeared and laid the foundations of this art in the Arab world on firm cultural and social bases.

Under the British occupation, caricatures were produced in Egypt by Rida, alias Big Uncle, and Abdul Samee who started a black-and-white caricature pamphlet campaigning for national liberation.

At about the same time, a number of foreign artists from Germany, Turkey and Armenia who were living in Cairo produced works that mocked manners and criticized social conditions. They were the forerunners of modern caricaturists like Salah Jaheen, George Al-Bahgouri, Nagi Al-Ali and Bahgat Othman who gave a new look to Arab caricature in the early 1950s. Those Arab artists created characters to express social and political concerns and communicate a cry for change and an urge to shake off the shackles of despotic government.

Meanwhile, other caricaturists appeared elsewhere in the Arab world. In Iraq, Ghazi, a brilliant cartoonist, created the figure of the smart Baghdadi who poked fun at wrongs attributed to the government and ridiculed the foreign occupation. In Syria, a group of fine caricaturists appeared, most notably Abdul Lateef Madeeni, Samir Kahalla and Ali Farzat. The works of the Libyan Mohamed Al-Zawawi and the Lebanese Khalil Al-Ashqar were an open attack on the evils of occupation.

Since its inception, caricature has developed specific forms, using pictures, captions and dialogue with different degrees of emphasis. The classical schools of this art form are:

•  The East European school, which depends on highly detailed pictures alone to communicate the idea.
• The West European school, which favors a simple drawing coupled with a comment in the form of a joke or a funny dialogue. The relationship between the dialogue and the picture crystallizes the paradoxical message of the work.
• The American school, which mixes the principles of the above two trends by emphasizing the pictures and illustrating their full implications through dialogue.

Kinds of Caricature
A caricature is a message communicated by the artist to his recipients within a common context that they share in real life. There are, therefore, different kinds of caricature:

• Social caricature emphasizes social issues and contradictions in a highly satirical vein, usually with a modest effect.
• Political caricature is more popular and widespread. It is strictly intended to criticize local or internal political affairs. A local caricature of this kind may have a caption, but caricatures dealing with international affairs tend to depend on pictures alone because the translated dialogue or comment may lose the intended cultural effect.
• Sports caricature is a journalistic offshoot of the social kind.

These types stress the nature of caricature as a provocative form of art that depends on the existence of a shared background between the artist and his audience who are involved in a collective construction of meaning.

Caricature may be effective in championing human rights in a simple, comic and satirical way. It explores future prospects by encouraging change or inspiring people to look forward to new social and human conditions. Thus, this simple but effective form of art has influenced other forms, which use satire to ridicule social ills and call for reinvigorating certain deeply rooted traditions to cope with change