WILLIAM HOGARTH: Visions In Print

Hogarth's 'A Harlot's Progress' was a series of six prints published in April 1732 which captured people's imagination and launched him into fame. The series tells the fateful story of Moll Hackabout, a young country girl new to London. At first she enjoys a luxurious lifestyle as mistress to a wealthy Jewish merchant (highly stereotyped by Hogarth), but soon, presumably because her other lovers are discovered, she falls on harder times, her health declining from venereal disease, until ultimately she suffers a lonely death. The prints are peppered with recognisable portraits and the series is much copied, leading to a Copyright Act known as Hogarth's Act of 1735, passed into law when he published his second moral series 'A Rake's Progress' showing the downfall of Tom Rakewell, aping the ways of the aristocracy and debauchery. 'A Midnight Modern Conversation' is a jocular image of men misbehaving in the exploitative global empire and his later work was engraved by the best masters from Paris, immediately showing the sophistication of the prints. Hogarth showed the perils of money and status as motivations and his Gin Lane was his campaign to curb the gin craze which was particularly rife among the London poor. An addled mother carelessly sends her baby to its death, riots break out, and the crumbling buildings stand in for social collapse. It is a scene in stark contrast to Beer Street, a patriotic vision of health and prosperity. He drew upon the work of old Italian Masters to demonstrate the distinction between character and caricature and The Analysis of Beauty was his most determined effort to present himself as a serious artist and thinker. His Four Prints of an Election comments upon the corrupt electioneering rife among both parties at the time and there is little doubt that the last years of his life were overshadowed by public wrangling. He had declared that he was no longer painting but devoting himself instead to engraving. Hogarth's powers as a graphic artist and fierce critic of the imperialist war are shown such as in a racist sign showing a stereotype Native American and the profits from tobacco and sugar. This marvellous Tate publication reproduces 50 plates in glorious detail, one per page on the glossy white paper of his raucous crowds, bustling streets and tales of human folly. 80 pages.
Click YouTube icon to see this book come to life on video.