{"id":192,"date":"2017-03-23T11:18:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T11:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/?p=192"},"modified":"2024-10-02T08:43:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T08:43:10","slug":"parini-last-days-of-aristocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/2017\/03\/23\/parini-last-days-of-aristocracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Parini: last days of aristocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1763 the Abbot Giuseppe Parini composes the poem Il Giorno<\/em>, a satirical text addressing the inactive, lazy, superficial life of the aristocracy. Pretending to be an ode written in praise and for the education of a Young Gentleman, the poem harshly criticises the parasitic emptiness of noblemen and women. As a parody of a eulogy, Il Giorno<\/em> deforms the classical poetic style, applying the language and rhetoric of epic and mythological tradition to the frivolous daily activities of the gentleman. The text provides a series of caricatures: first, the Young Lord is scared to death by the word \u201cwork\u201d, and his hair stands on end (vv. 54-56):<\/p>\n

Ma che? Tu inorridisci, e mostri in capo,
\nqual istrice pungente, irti i capegli
\nal suon di mie parole?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then the text goes on describing the endless series of operations needed for the image of the lord to be restored<\/em>, with the intervention of an \u00abarchitect\u00bb who is in charge of building his hairstyle. It’s worth noticing that exaggerated hairdressing is a common, recurring target of the Eighteenth-century European social satire and caricature.<\/p>\n

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William Hogarth, The Five Orders of Perriwigs as They Were Worn at the Late Coronation, Measured Architectonically, November 1761. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain<\/p><\/div>\n

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Probably after Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, What! Is This My Son Tom?, June 1774. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.<\/p><\/div>\n

During this delicate operation,\u00a0something can always go wrong: suddenly the Lord enrages, is upset, shouts against the hairstylist, crashes his tools, turns everything upside down because him, the hairstylist, is not properly following the French fashion (vv. 514-543):<\/p>\n

Lunga fia l\u2019opra tua; n\u00e9 al termin giunta
\nPrima sar\u00e0, che da pi\u00fa strani eventi
\nTurbisi e tronchi a la tua impresa il filo.
\nFisa i lumi allo speglio, e vedrai quivi
\nNon di rado il Signor morder le labbra
\nImpaz\u00efente, ed arrossir nel viso.
\nSovente ancor, se artificiosa meno
\nFia la tua destra, del convulso piede
\nUdrai lo scalpitar breve e frequente,
\nNon senza un tronco articolar di voce
\nChe condanni e minacci. Anco t\u2019aspetta
\nVeder talvolta il mio Signor gentile
\nFur\u00efando agitarsi, e destra e manca
\nPorsi nel crine; e scompigliar con l\u2019ugna
\nLo studio di molt\u2019ore in un momento.
\nChe pi\u00fa? Se per tuo male un d\u00ed vaghezza
\nD\u2019accordar ti prendesse al suo sembiante
\nL\u2019edificio del capo, ed obl\u00efassi
\nDi prender legge da colui che giunse
\nPur ier di Francia, ahi quale atroce folgore,
\nMeschino! allor ti pender\u00eda sul capo?
\nCh\u00e9 il tuo Signor vedresti ergers\u2019in piedi;
\nE versando per gli occhi ira e dispetto,
\nMille strazi imprecarti; e scender fino
\nAd usurpar le infami voci al vulgo
\nPer farti onta maggiore; e di bastone
\nIl tergo minacciarti; e v\u00efolento
\nRovesciare ogni cosa, al suol spargendo
\nRotti cristalli e calamistri e vasi
\nE pettini ad un tempo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Thomas Rowlandson, Six Stages of Mending a Face, Dedicated with Respect to the Right Hon.ble Lady Archer, May 29, 1792. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Creative Commons Universal Public Domain Dedication.<\/p><\/div>\n

Once the toilette<\/em> is accomplished, a painter goes on to portray the Young Lord. Yet, the portrait immediately turns into a caricature: the Lord’s figure is inflexible and full of faults<\/em>, the face is too dark, the lips too full and the mouth unrestrained, the nose is flattened, the agile limbs and the noble chest don\u2019t seem that agile and noble. The misshaping of the figure is attributed to the mistakes of the painter, to his lack of expertise, but we can suspect that the accidental caricature is not accidental at all.<\/p>\n

This misshapen portrait can be compared to the caricatures of \u00a0Pier Leone Ghezzi, who is considered among the first professional practitioners of modern caricature.<\/p>\n

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Dr. Thomas Bentley wearing a wig and a sword. Etching by A. Pond after Pier Leone Ghezzi. Source: Wellcome Images<\/a>, public domain.<\/p><\/div>\n

Both Ghezzi\u2019s and Parini\u2019s caricatures explicitly satirise the official portrait as a genre, which was a powerful device of self-fashioning for the ancien r\u00e9gime <\/em>ruling class, but also the battlefield where the deconstruction of that class begun. Jurij Lotman highlights Goya\u2019s portrait of the Spanish royal family as an example of the ambiguity between celebration and caricature: a slight deformation of the individuals denounces the degeneration of their power.<\/p>\n

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Francisco Goya, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, 1800, detail. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Francisco Goya, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, 1800, detail. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.<\/p><\/div>\n

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As much as Parini\u2019s satirical portrait, Goya’s work is a symptom of the disruption of a whole regime of viewing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1763 the Abbot Giuseppe Parini composes the poem Il Giorno, a satirical text addressing the inactive, lazy, superficial life of the aristocracy. Pretending to be an ode written in praise and for the education of a Young Gentleman, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14,17,8,18,10],"tags":[21,24,55,73,75,70,69,27,74,28,77,68,72,45,71,80,79,76,33],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18th-century","category-generic-figures","category-literary-characters","category-paintings","category-poetry","category-prints","tag-body","tag-face","tag-full-lenght-portrait","tag-goya","tag-hair","tag-hogarth","tag-il-giorno","tag-italy","tag-lotman","tag-man","tag-nose","tag-parini","tag-pier-leone-ghezzi","tag-portrait","tag-rowlandson","tag-spain","tag-uk","tag-wig","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk\/litcaricature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}