What is a caricature?

According to Lenn Redman, a caricature is:

"an exaggerated likeness of a person made by emphasizing all of the features that make the person different from everyone else."

This quote is taken from Redman's book How To Draw Caricatures, which I have just ordered from Amazon to try and improve my own caricatures. I think this is the best definition of 'caricature' I've ever heard. Redman also makes the distinction between 'distorting' features, and 'exaggerating' features, 'exaggeration' being "overemphasis of the truth", while 'distortion' is "complete denial of the truth". In this way, caricature should be seen as an exaggeration of certain features of the face, rather than distortion.

He also references Einstein's theory of relativity! Basically, that we perceive things as they are only because of their relationship to each other. So if somebody has a big nose, we need to draw it bigger, relative to the other facial features as well as relative to the 'average' nose size. Somebody's ears might look huge relative to his tiny head, but compared with an 'average' pair of ears, they might be no bigger at all.

From the extract I've read it looks like the book will give me some valuable insights into the theory of caricature. Can't wait for it to be delivered!

Tags: Lenn Redman, How to draw Caricatures, relativity, caricature