2. Early life
► William Hogarth was born at
Bartholomew Close in London to
Richard Hogarth, a poor Latin school
teacher and textbook writer, and
Anne Gibbons. In his youth he was
apprenticed to the engraver Ellis
Gamble in Leicester Fields, where
he learned to engrave trade cards
and similar products. Young
Hogarth 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. 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 spoke
of his father's imprisonment.
He became a member of the Rose and
Crown Club, with Peter Tillemans,
George Vertue, Michael Dahl, and other
artists and connoisseurs.
3. Career
► By April 1720 Hogarth was an engraver in his own right, at
first engraving coats of arms, shop bills, and designing plates
for booksellers.
►In 1727, he was hired by
Joshua Morris, a tapestry
worker, to prepare a design for
the Element of Earth. Morris,
however, heard that he was
"an engraver, and no painter",
and consequently declined the
work when completed. Hogarth
accordingly sued him for the
money in the Westminster
Court, where the case was
decided in his favour on 28
May 1728. In 1757 he was
appointed Serjeant Painter to
the King.
4. Early works
► Early satirical works included an Emblematical Print on the
South Sea Scheme (c.1721), about the disastrous stock
market crash of 1720 known as the South Sea Bubble, in
which 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 machine, like
a merry-go-round, which people are
boarding. At the top is a goat,
written below which is "Who'l Ride".
The people are scattered around the
picture with a sense of disorder,
while the progress of the well
dressed people towards the ride in
the middle shows the foolishness of
the crowd in buying stock in The
South Sea Company, which spent
more time issuing stock than
anything else.
5. ► 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 the exaggerated popularity of Lord Burlington's protégé, the
architect and painter William Kent. He continued that theme in 1727,
with the Large Masquerade Ticket. In 1726 Hogarth prepared twelve
large engravings for Samuel Butler's Hudibras. These he himself valued
highly, and are among his best book illustrations.
6. ► In 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.
► Hogarth's other works 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). He may also have printed 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
(some modern authorities, however, no longer attribute this to Hogarth).
7. Moralizing art
► In 1731, he completed the earliest of the series of moral works which first
gave him recognition 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 ceremony.
►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. The original paintings of A
Harlot's Progress were destroyed in
the fire at Fonthill Abbey in 1755;
A Rake's Progress is displayed in
the gallery room at Sir John
Soane's Museum, London.
8. Marriage à-la-mode
► In 1743–1745 Hogarth painted the six pictures of Marriage à-la-mode (National Gallery,
London), a pointed skewering of upper class 18th century society. This moralistic
warning shows the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money. This is
regarded by many as his finest project, certainly the best piece of his serially-planned
story cycles.
► Marital ethics were the topic of much debate in 18th century Britain. Frequent
marriages of convenience and their attendant unhappiness came in for particular
criticism, with a variety of authors taking the view that love was a much sounder basis
for marriage. Hogarth here painted a satire – a genre that by definition has a moral
point to convey – of a conventional marriage within the English upper class. All the
paintings were engraved and the series achieved wide circulation in print form.
►The series, which are set in a
Classical interior, shows the story of the
fashionable marriage of the son of
bankrupt Earl Squanderfield to the
daughter of a wealthy but miserly city
merchant, starting with the signing of a
marriage contract at the Earl's mansion
and ending with the murder of the son
by his wife's lover and the suicide of
the daughter after her lover is hanged
at Tyburn for murdering her husband.
9. Industry and Idleness
► In the twelve prints of Industry and Idleness (1747) Hogarth
shows the progression in the lives of two apprentices, one of
whom is dedicated and hard working, the other idle which leads to
crime and his execution. This shows the work ethic of Protestant
England, where those who work hard get rewarded, such as the
industrious apprentice who becomes Sheriff, Alderman, and finally
the Lord Mayor of London in the last plate in the series. The idle
apprentice, who begins with being "at play in the church yard“,
holes up "in a Garrett with a Common Prostitute" after turning
highwayman and "executed at Tyburn".
►The idle apprentice is sent to the
gallows by the industrious apprentice
himself.
10. Beer Street and Gin Lane
► Later important prints include his pictorial
warning of the unpleasant consequences
of alcoholism in Beer Street and Gin Lane
(1751) Hogarth engraved Beer Street to
show a happy city drinking the 'good'
beverage of English beer, versus Gin Lane
which showed the effects of drinking gin
which, as a harder liquor, caused more
problems for society. People are shown as
healthy, happy and prosperous in Beer
Street, while in Gin Lane they are
scrawny, lazy and careless. The woman at
the front of Gin Lane who lets her baby
fall to its death, echoes the tale of Judith
Dufour who strangled her baby so she
could sell its clothes for gin money. The
prints were published in support of what
would become the Gin Act 1751.
Hogarth's friend, the magistrate Henry Fielding, may have enlisted Hogarth to
help with propaganda for a Gin Act: Beer Street and Gin Lane were issued
shortly after his work An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of
Robbers, and Related Writings and addressed the same issues.
11. The Four Stages of Cruelty
► Other prints were his outcry
against inhumanity in The Four
Stages of Cruelty (published 21
February 1751), in which Hogarth
depicts the cruel treatment of
animals which he saw around him,
and suggests what will happen to
people who carry on in this
manner. In the first picture there
are scenes of torture of dogs, cats
and other animals. The second
shows one of the characters from
the first painting, Tom Nero, has
now become a coach driver, and
his cruelty to his horse has caused
it to break its leg. In the third
painting Tom is shown as a
murderer, with the woman he
killed lying on the ground, while in
the fourth, titled Reward of
Cruelty, the murderer is shown
being dissected by scientists after
his execution. The method of
execution, and the dissection,
reflect the 1752 Act of Parliament
allowing for the dissection of
executed criminals who had been
convicted for murder.
12. 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 The
Shrimp Girl
(National Gallery,
London) may be
called masterpieces
of British painting.
13. Biblical scenes
► Examples of his history pictures are The Pool of Bethesda
and The Good Samaritan, executed in 1736–1737 for St
Bartholomew's Hospital; Moses brought before Pharaoh's
Daughter, painted for the Foundling Hospital (1747, formerly
at the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now in the
Foundling Museum); Paul before Felix (1748) at Lincoln's
Inn; and his altarpiece for St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol (1756).
14. The Gate of Calais
► He was seized and carried to the
governor, where he was forced to
prove his vocation by producing
several caricatures of the French;
particularly a scene of the shore,
with an immense piece of beef
landing for the lion d'argent, the
English inn at Calais, and several
hungry friars following it. They were
much diverted with his drawings,
and dismissed him. Back home, he
immediately executed a painting of
the subject in which he unkindly
represented his enemies, the
Frenchmen, as cringing, emaciated
and superstitious people, while an
enormous sirloin of beef arrives,
destined for the English inn as a
symbol of British prosperity and
superiority. He claimed to have
painted himself into the picture in
the left corner sketching the gate,
with a "soldier's hand upon my
shoulder", running him in.
The Gate of Calais (1748; now in Tate Britain) was
produced soon after his return from a visit to
France. Horace Walpole wrote that Hogarth had run
a great risk to go there since the peace of Aix-la-
Chapelle, he went to France, and was so imprudent
as to be taking a sketch of the drawbridge at Calais.
15. Other later works
► In 1745 Hogarth painted a self-portrait with his pug dog
(now also in Tate Britain), which shows him as a learned
artist supported by volumes of Shakespeare, Milton and
Swift. In 1749, he represented the somewhat disorderly
English troops on their March of the Guards to Finchley
(formerly located in Thomas Coram Foundation for
Children, now Foundling Museum).
►Notable Hogarth engravings in the
1740s includeThe Enraged Musician
(1741), the six prints of Marriage à-
la-mode (1745; executed by French
artists under Hogarth's inspection),
and The Stage Coach or The
Country Inn Yard (1747).
►Others were his ingenious Satire on False Perspective (1753); his satire on canvassing in his
Election series (1755–1758; now in Sir John Soane's Museum); his ridicule of the English passion
for cockfighting in The Cockpit (1759); his attack on Methodism in Credulity, Superstition, and
Fanaticism (1762); his political anti-war satire in The Times, plate I (1762); and his pessimistic view
of all things in Tailpiece, or The Bathos (1764).
16. Personal life
► Freemasonry was a theme in some of
Hogarth's work, most notably 'Night', the
fourth in the quartet of paintings (later
released as engravings) collectively
entitled the Four Times of the Day.
Hogarth died in London on 26 October
1764 and was buried at St. Nicholas's
Churchyard, Chiswick Mall, Chiswick,
London. His friend, actor David Garrick,
composed the following inscription for his
tombstone:
On 23 March 1729 Hogarth married Jane Thornhill, daughter of artist Sir James
Thornhill. Hogarth was initiated as a Freemason some time before 1728 in the Lodge
at the Hand and Apple Tree Tavern, Little Queen Street, and later belonged to the
Carrier Stone Lodge and the Grand Stewards' Lodge; the latter still possesses the
'Hogarth Jewel' which Hogarth designed for the Lodge's Master to wear. Today the
original is in storage and a replica is worn by the Master of the Lodge.
Farewell great Painter of Mankind
Who reach'd the noblest point of Art
Whose pictur'd Morals charm the Mind
And through the Eye correct the Heart.
If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay,
If Nature touch thee, drop a Tear:
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here.
