Comfort To The Corns Analysis

James Gillray’s piece, Comfort to the Corns, is a very intriguing work of art. Gillray is known for creating social and political cartoons and caricatures. He did the majority of his art work in the style of etching and was active during the end of the 18th century—1792 through 1810. In the artwork, Comfort to the Corns, James Gillray depicts an elderly hag attending to her feet satirically, adding subtle humor and life to the piece.
The piece that I believe speaks to me is James Gillray’s Comfort to the Corns. because of its satirical humor. This piece was created in 1800 and is 10.2 x 7.8 inches (“Comfort to the Corns.”). This particular piece is on display at the Memphis Brooks Museum of art and is displayed in an open area on the second floor around the railings. The exhibit that it is displayed in is called Cats and Quotes, mainly because there is a cat in this piece and the museum was trying to honor cats with this exhibit. In this artwork, there is an elderly hag sitting in front of a fire attending to her foot with a knife in front of a fire and next to her is a bucket of water with a brush beside it. Near the fire is a reddish-brown housecat cat that appears to be grooming …show more content…
Gillray is known as the “father of the political cartoon” (“James Gillray”) because he introduced caricature as an art in the late 18th century. His work stayed the same all throughout this years of activity. All of his works of art were hand-colored etchings drawn as political cartoons and even touched on social issues as well. Many people chose not to challenge politics and play their role, but Gillray chose to depict the people and the politics in a satirical way. This particular piece, Comfort to the Corns, is different because there are very few artists from that time period who published political cartoons so the art is very refreshing to the