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Hogarth’s treatise On Beauty gives evidence of the importance of laughter as a process of moral purification. What makes caricatures entertaining is, according to Hogarth, not so much the strange and surprising contents they may show, but the representation of both the familiar and the unfamiliar in an unfitting form, e.g. in grotesque stiffness.Just as much as Hogarth contrasts ‘natural beauty’ with artificiality and wild chaos, caricatures derive their effect from the falseness of shape and decorum they expose. Hogarth had a fine understanding of the differences between serious art and comedy. According to his Analysis of Beauty, union and variety of form and colour defined true beauty. If variety and union are deliberately inversed, this creates a comic effect upon the spectator. Thereby, special emphasis is placed on parallel lines, circles and opposite directions, which all lack the ‘natural’ preponderance that is, for example, to be found in the movements of an English country-dance. This is also an important statement about his general perception of art and its cultural function. For Hogarth, the form speaks to the spectators before the content can reach them, and if the form expresses noble ideas and elegance, even monsters (e.g. taken from antique mythology) are generally viewed with recognition and sincerity. As a consequence, a caricaturist can apply the willingness of the eye to ‘overlook the absurdity’ due to ‘something (…) agreeable in their form’ for his own intentions.German journals of the 1770s to 1800s were aware of the peculiar qualities of British caricatures and regularly re-printed and explained original works to their continental readers. Hüttner, for instance, discussed several English satire prints pertaining to the Irish Rebellion of 1798.Adopting Hogarth’s theoretical approach, German critic and journalist Hüttner considered the vivacity, animation and richness of detail the most important criteria of valuable art and stressed the necessity of such agitation media in contemporary society. ‘The masterly distributed lightning’ in Gillray’s engraving was merely a secondary proof of his talents. According to Hüttner, caricatures did not have a single visual language but could refer to many different art genres of the past and combine them in evocative creativity. This flexibility conveyed a political message. Hogarth highly praised the Quakers for their ‘principle of simplicity, or plainness’ and criticised all attempts by whatever class of society to go beyond the decorum that befitted them in fashion and make-up. Hogarth was especially critical of French courtly fashions, most of all of the noblewomen’s hair dress. His attitude influenced not only his down-to-earth art theory but also his political conviction that liberty and natural self-expression must never cross the boundaries of the common good and general morality. Visual satires called spectators to question what they saw and to reconsider their civility.In 1776, J. H. Merck discussed Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty in comparison with Burke’s Enquiry (…) of the Sublime and summarised their opposed views as a dispute of inbred aesthetics and attributed meaning. In Merck’s view, Burke only acknowledged beauty if the subject’s natural condition and the artist’s presentation corresponded with each other whereas Hogarth was convinced that beauty was above all the recipients’ openness to value visual impressions without intellectual prejudice. Subjects of beauty and dignity favoured by Burke were thus opposed to the overpowering quality of representation defended by Hogarth, and in the fictitious German debate between Hogarth and Burke, the latter cautioned the former that it was dangerous to teach the people to imagine beauty where it did not exist in reality. Although Merck himself betrays great sympathy for Hogarth, many other German observers agreed with Burke, and English art theory remained an important matter of debate.***Sully’s famous painting for the North Carolina town hall, which is the largest painting exhibited in the MFA Boston, depicts the nightly crossing of the frozen river before the Christmas Day Battle, the turning point for Washington’s campaign. The painting shows frightened horses and tired soldiers, while Washington is turned backward in reflection. The depiction expresses ambiguity and tension even though it is clearly modelled on British heroic art. The absence of symbols of power and signs of rank stresses the self-image of the young American nation. Only Washington’s uniform expresses status, but the democratic ideal of a pensive and well-advised decision in the spirit of brotherhood is much more prominent. Sully’s painting was a great success even though it proved to be too large and heavy to be put up in the originally destined place.***It is exciting to see how ‘l’independence de l’Amérique’ was pictured in French prints. The people of Boston awaiting the Declaration are shown as poorly dressed, simple and in need, raising their arms up to heaven. Among them are thin and shy children, stressing the vulnerability of the crowd. The French troops arriving with the good news are seen as protectors and agents of liberty and peace (1786), while the British troops are mainly represented as an enemy equal in power and cultural accomplishments, but misled by greed. The British surrender to Washington after the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781 was engraved by French artist Francis Renault as a civilized meeting of the leading generals in a mythologically charged landscape. Signs of war and flashing lightning on the right hand side are contrasted with an allegory of peace on the left, a cupid-like boy holding a peace treaty. Washington and his officers are well-dressed gentlemen and do not differ from the French and British envois. The involuntarily derogatory representation of the average America and the high rank of the nation’s first leaders seem to contrast sharply in the eyes of French observers and may indeed hint to the cultural gap among themselves and the Americans, which some British sources describe.