William Hogarth

William Hogarth (November 10, 1697 – October 26, 1764) was a major British painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, and editorial cartoonist who has been credited as a pioneer in western sequential art. His work ranged from excellent realistic portraiture to Comic strip-like series of pictures called “modern moral subjects.” Much of his work poked humorous, at times vicious, fun at contemporary politics and customs.

Life and work

Early years

The son of a poor schoolteacher and textbook writer, William Hogarth was born at Bartholomew Close in London on November 10, 1697. In his youth he was apprenticed to the silver-plate engraver Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields, where he learned to engrave shopcards and the like. Young William also took a lively interest in the street life of the metropolis and the London fairs, and amused himself by sketching the characters he saw. At around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St John's Gate, was imprisoned for debt in Fleet Prison for five years. Hogarth never talked about the fact. By April 1720 he was engraver on his own account, at first engraving coats of arms, shop bills, and designing plates for booksellers. Early satirical works included an Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme (c.1721)

The South Sea Scheme is about the disastrous stock market crash of 1720 known as the South Sea Bubble, where many English people lost a great deal of money. In the bottom left corner, he shows Protestant, Catholic and Jewish figures gambling, while in the middle there is a huge merry-go-round like machine, which people are getting on to ride. At the top is a goat, written below which is "Who'l Ride" and this shows the stupidity of people in following the crowd in buying South Sea Company stock, a company which spent more time issuing stock than actually producing anything. The people are scattered around the picture with a real sense of disorder, which represented the confusion. The progress of the well dressed people towards the ride in the middle shows how foolish some people could be, which is not entirely their own fault.

Other early works include The Lottery (1724); The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by the Gormogons (1724); A Just View of the British Stage (1724); some book illustrations; and the small print, Masquerades and Operas (1724). The latter is a satire on contemporary follies, such as the masquerades of the Swiss impresario John James Heidegger, the popular Italian opera singers, John Rich's pantomimes at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and last not least, the exaggerated popularity of Lord Burlington's protégé, the architect and painter William Kent. In 1726 Hogarth prepared twelve large engravings for Samuel Butler's Hudibras. These he himself valued highly, and are among his best book illustrations.

In 1727-1728 he was hired by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the Element of Earth. Morris, however, having heard that he was "an engraver, and no painter," declined the work when completed, and Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court, where, on the 28th of May 1728, the case was decided in Hogarth's favour. The following years he turned his attention to the production of small "conversation pieces" (i.e. groups in oil of full-length portraits from 12 to 15 in. high). Among his efforts in oil between 1728 and 1732 were The Fountaine Family (c.1730); The Assembly at Wanstead House; The House of Commons examining Bambridge; and several pictures of the chief actors in John Gay's popular The Beggar's Opera. One of his masterpieces of this period is the depiction of an amateur performance of John Dryden's The Indian Emperor, or The Conquest of Mexico (1732-1735) at the home of John Conduitt, master of the mint, in St George's Street, Hanover Square.

Ptrait of Mary Edwards, 1742On the March 23, 1729 he was married to Jane Thornhill, daughter of artist Sir James Thornhill.

Notable engravings between 1726 and 1732 are the Large Masquerade Ticket (1727), another satire on masquerades, and possibly the print of Burlington Gate (1731), evoked by Alexander Pope's Epistle to Lord Burlington, and defending Lord Chandos, who is therein satirized. This print gave great offence, and was suppressed. (However, it is no longer attributed to Hogarth by some modern authorities.)

Painter and engraver of modern moral subjects

Hogarth lived in an age, when artwork became immensely commercialized, something no longer just exhibited in churches and the homes of connoisseurs, but viewed in shopwindows, taverns and public buildings and sold in printshops. Old hierarchies broke down, and new forms began to flourish: the ballad opera, the bourgeois tragedy, and especially, a new form of fiction called the novel with which authors such as Henry Fielding had great success. Therefore, by that time, Hogarth hit on a new idea: "painting and engraving modern moral subjects ... to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture was my stage," as he himself remarked in his manuscript notes. To be sure, there were earlier artists that had depicted ordinary life, but Hogarth's moralizing was indeed revolutionary.

Harlot's and Rake's Progress

In 1731 he completed the earliest of the series of moral works which first gave him his position as a great and original genius. This was A Harlot's Progress, first as paintings (now lost), and then published as engravings. In its six scenes, the miserable fate of a country girl who began a prostitution career in town is traced out remorselessly from its starting point, the meeting of a bawd, to its shameful and degraded end, the whore's death of venereal disease and the following merciless funeral ceremonial. The series was an immediate success, and was followed in 1735 by the sequel A Rake's Progress showing in eight pictures the reckless life of Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who wastes all his money on luxurious living, whoring and gambling, and ultimately finishes his life in Bedlam.

A Rake's Progress, Plate 8, 1735Hogarth's other prints in the 1730s include A Midnight Modern Conversation (1733), Southwark Fair (1733), The Sleeping Congregation (1736), Before and After (1736), Scholars at a Lecture (1736), The Company of Undertakers (Consultation of Quacks) (1736), The Distrest Poet (1736), The Four Times of the Day (1738), and Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn (1738).

Four Times of the day

The Four Times of the day series shows his version of the traditional times of the day theme in art; of events taking place at morning, noon, afternoon and night. In Morning, there is an wealthy woman on the way to church, who avoids making eye contact with the couple on the right or the beggar below her, speaking of the hypocrisy of some church goers by acting pious but ignoring their fellow people. The next print, Noon, continues the theme, with well dressed people exiting the church on the right, while there are poorer people suffering on the left, a line in the middle of the picture in the road actually dividing the two classes. It shows clearly the gap in society between the upper and lower classes. While the rich look ridiculous and haughty in their fine costumes, the poor are more concerned with food and sex.

Marriage a-la-mode

In 1743-1745 Hogarth painted his six pictures of Marriage à-la-mode (National Gallery, London), an accurate delineation of upper class 18th century society showing the miserable tragedy of an ill-assorted marriage. This is regarded by many as his finest series. Hogarth challenges the ideal view that the rich live virtuous lives, showing many of the people at their worst, having affairs, drunk, gambling, and other vices. In the first in the series of six, he shows an arranged marriage between a Count and Countess. In the second, the marriage has already begun to break down with the husband and wife disinterested in one another, while evidence of them having partied with different people the night before lies all around them. The people's interests depicted reveal their personalities and their status in society, such as playing cards, a book of music and the probably pornographic artwork hidden underneath the curtain in the other room. The third in the series, Scene with the Quack, shows the Count at a doctor to receive medicine for a sexually transmitted disease he contracted. In the next, he discovers his wife with another man in the bedroom and is fatally wounded in a fight with him. Then his wife poisons herself in her grief, while in this last plate, her father takes her wedding ring off her finger as she lies dying, appearing to be thinking only of the value of the ring, not of his daughter's life. Hogarth thus gives a gloomy view of what he perceives to be the life of the upper classes.

However, these admirable pictures were at first slightly treated by the public, at which the artist was greatly incensed. Being in want of money, he was at length obliged to dispose of them to Mr. Lane, of Hillington, for one hundred and twenty guineas. The pictures being in good frames, which cost Hogarth four guineas a piece, his remuneration for painting this valuable series was but a few shillings more than one hundred pounds. On the demise of Mr. Lane, they became the property of his nephew, Colonel Cawthorn, who very highly valued them. In the year 1797 they were sold by auction, at Christie's, Pall Mall, for the sum of one thousand guineas; the liberal purchaser being the late Mr. Angerstein. They now belong to government, and are among the most attractive objects in the National Gallery.

Portraits

Hogarth was also a popular portrait painter. In 1746 he painted actor David Garrick as Richard III, for which he was paid £200, “which was more,” he wrote, “than any English artist ever received for a single portrait.” In the same year a sketch of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, afterwards beheaded on Tower Hill, had an exceptional success. Hogarth's truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic Captain Coram (1740; formerly Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now Foundling Museum), and his unfinished oil sketch of a Shrimp Girl (National Gallery, London) may be called masterpieces of British painting.

The paintings are the excellent portrayal of the events and scenes that we see around us. The painters are the best cameras of the world. They reproduce many different types of pictures. They even draw imaginary pictures that do not exist in this world. We tend to use both thinned oil paints and dense oil paints. Masterpieces can be dyed more than once, but each time it may be different from the existing paintings.h

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