Creature Double Feature: On Style and Subject in the Art of Caricature

A caricature is a distinctive drawing in which the essence of a subject is rendered in the style of an artist. The question is: How do artists make distinctive drawings and how do viewers see subject and style? Here I explore this question in a series of three investigations on contour drawings of animal silhouettes. First, I present a descriptive study of how different artists (styles) create freehand drawings of different animals (subjects). Next, I present a predictive model of how viewers compare contours when they recognize similarity in subject and style. Last, I present a generative program that creates caricatures using automated algorithms to simulate the cognitive processes of human artists. The resulting drawings are shown to exhibit and exaggerate the style and subject of human drawings. In closing, I discuss practical applications of caricature for improving human-system interaction and I outline possible extensions of contour analysis to other media like music and