Four Heads (from Characaturas by Leonardo da Vinci, from Drawings by Wincelslaus Hollar, out of the Portland Museum) 1786

Curator: This is "Four Heads," an etching and engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar, created in 1786. It’s currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Well, right away, these guys give me a good chuckle. They look like characters out of a really eccentric play—full of puffed-up opinions and dramatic sneers. There's a delightful grotesqueness to them. Curator: Indeed. Hollar, of course, worked from drawings after Leonardo da Vinci's caricatures. We see a strong use of line here; Hollar’s masterful engraving technique renders each character's distinctive physiognomy. Observe the precise hatching and cross-hatching that delineate the forms. Editor: I love how Hollar highlights their… quirks, shall we say? The top left fellow with the crazy nose, and the old dude with spectacles…they’re so wonderfully weird! There’s real personality shining through despite the exaggeration. Curator: Precisely. The very intention of caricature hinges on selective exaggeration, underscoring inherent qualities. It presents us with a commentary on human vanity and folly. It adheres, surprisingly, to a kind of aesthetic logic, finding its grounding in empirical observation—however skewed. Editor: Maybe. But I think there’s also just plain fun happening here. Hollar is almost saying, "Look at these folks; aren't people hilarious?" And they really are. Each little portrait seems to vibrate with implied stories and gossip. It makes me wonder what they would all sound like arguing around a table. Curator: That tension between critical observation and a kind of unvarnished glee is absolutely critical here, and it shapes our contemporary reading of these images. But ultimately we’re still dealing with artistic forms deployed within an identifiable framework and its associated semiotic structures. Editor: Always finding the framework! Me, I'm happy to be drawn into their world, full of interesting, if strangely shaped, people. Makes me feel grateful for my own peculiar nose! Curator: A fair assessment. In the end, an etching is an etching; it's the beholder’s interpretive framework that makes it come alive. Editor: And a jolly lot they are! Now I want to go home and draw all my friends with extra-large ears and eyebrows!