How to Burlesque a Burlesquer
Paul Sandby's A New Dunciad against William Hogarth
This chapter analyses a caricature, produced in 1753 by the watercolourist Paul
Sandby entitled Burlesque sur le Burlesque. This caricature attacks the painter
William Hogarth, in particular, his recently published aesthetic treatise, The
Analysis of Beauty, and his stance in the English Academic debates of the
1750s – a series of events in which English artists debated whether or not they
should migrate from private artistic academies to publicly funded and hierarchically
organised arts academies on the continental model. The chapter
explores the way in which Sandby targets his object, and through iconographical
analysis, demonstrates how caricature operates visually as a literal puzzle
that forefronts certain criticisms, and veil others.