There's a lineage of caricature running through this loose black outline - the lopsided skull, the smug downward lip, eyes reduced to a pair of brackets - that Daumier would have recognised instantly. The crown bulges unevenly, a rising smile-line curves with the confidence of a stroke that knows exactly when to stop, and two strokes angling from the neck read as limbs caught mid-shrug. Fewer marks than you'd think are needed to make a face this pointed.
There's a lineage of caricature running through this loose black outline - the lopsided skull, the smug downward lip, eyes reduced to a pair of brackets - that Daumier would have recognised instantly. The crown bulges unevenly, a rising smile-line curves with the confidence of a stroke that knows exactly when to stop, and two strokes angling from the neck read as limbs caught mid-shrug. Fewer marks than you'd think are needed to make a face this pointed.
- Curatorial note, wifärt gallery