Birth Year : 1697
Death Year : 1764
Country : England
William Hogarth, painter and social critic, was born in London. As an
apprentice, he learned copper engraving, book illustration, and the making
of bookplates and show cards. When he gained his independence in 1720,
he began to study painting with Sir James Thornhill, a painter of baroque
decorations. After marrying his teacher's daughter, Hogarth started his
own career as a portraitist. He described his own works as "moral subjects.
. .similar to representations on the stage" and wished them to be considered
and judged like dumb shows. In 1731, six paintings collectively called
"The Harlot's Progress" appeared and the following year Hogarth engraved
the series for a large and enthusiastic popular audience. Other series
followed - "The Rake's Progress", "Marriage à la Mode", "The Four
Times of Day" - as well as single works depicting the life of his period.
All of these teach by example, pointing out the foibles of the rich and
the depths of degradation of those who have fallen from the narrow path
of middle-class virtue.
The paintings, crowded with a fascinating
gallery of psychological and physical caricatures and portraits, illustrate
(satirically) the same world depicted by such moralizing novelists and
Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson. The individual paintings are crammed
with detail and allusions to each other so that the viewer has the sensation
of reading a story without words but with familiar characters, objects,
and settings. The works are as bright and lively as some of the works of
Watteau
and as evidently delighted with human nature as those of Frans Hals
or Jan Steen. The moralizing, although clear, is never obtrusive or depressing,
and these series are extremely important historical and social documents.
Hogarth was not always as successful with his purely historical paintings
and his sincere and powerful portraits in which, nevertheless, his keen
understanding of human nature and his ability to paint both boldly and
minutely are more than evident.
|
|
William
Hogarth
Shrimp
Girl
View
all William Hogarth
Books about
William Hogarth |
