A caricature is a drawing of a person in which the individual’s peculiar features are exaggerated so as to appear ridiculous. Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist, described this process in an article he wrote for The Youth’s Companion, a magazine for children in 1896.

In his article Nast explained: “If a man has a long neck make it longer; if he is very tall, give him additional inches; if he is small and short, make him more so; if he is obese, he is to be credited with more notable rotundity of form.” When drawing himself, Nast would exaggerate his most noticeable features.   He would make his forehead lower, his mustache larger, his belly more round and his legs shorter.

Nast drew many caricatures of William Tweed, the corrupt politician who ran New York City after the Civil War.  In one of his most memorable drawing, Nast replaced Tweed’s face with a money bag to signify the money he had stolen from the city. Infuriated, Tweed said he didn’t care what the newspapers printed about him because most his constituents couldn’t read but they could understand “those confounded caricatures.”

In 1866, Nast drew sixty life-sized caricatures of prominent men and women. The caricatures were used as decorations at the Grand Masquerade Opera Ball given at the New York Academy of Music on April 5. Nast had the opportunity to observe the people he had drawn and noted they all seemed to like the caricatures until theirs appeared.  Then their expressions changed.

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