WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: William Hogarth 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:06.160 Happy Saturday, everybody. Since William Hogarth got a name drop 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:08.760 in this week's episode on Gin, we thought we would 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.920 bring our episode on him out for Today's Saturday Classic. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:19.840 This one originally came out July Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:29.120 Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.160 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.120 Trac V. Wilson, and today we're going to talk about 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:37.519 an artist. But his story really involves so much more 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.360 than art. It involves satire and social criticism, and it 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.919 even gets into some legislation for artist rights. But one 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:47.080 thing we should point out is that his satire and 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.120 social criticism was being made in the early seventeen hundreds 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.440 when the society he was criticizing was very different than ours. 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.840 It was debuted in a lot of ways. Yes, so 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:03.240 there are a lot of things that are viewed very 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.680 differently than we view them. Uh. There is discussion of 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.640 of sex workers in this episode, not any details, but 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.399 they come up in some of his prints, as well 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:19.000 as some violence, some drug use, things like that come up. 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:23.080 So just be aware that that's that's in the hopper 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.160 and that it will be again based on on the 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.280 views of England in the seventeen thirties and forties and fifties. Well, 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:32.840 and especially because our artwork for this one is a 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.240 self portrait of the artist with his dog, and it 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.920 looks so sweet. It looks very sweet. And I was like, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.800 I could just see teachers saying, hey, this would be 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.960 a great episode to share with the kids. Um, and 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.160 it might be depending on the age of your kids, 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.080 the kids you're thinking of, but you would want still, 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.440 I think to frame it and kind of listen first, 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:57.320 and uh, decide based on the actual content. But we're 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.000 going to talk about William Hogarth, who was in English 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.080 artist that as I said, uh, you know, his life 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.720 story involves a lot more than just art. William Hogarth 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.000 was born to Richard Hogarth and Anne Gibbons in London, England, 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:17.840 on November tenth seven. He did have some siblings, although 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:24.400 the tally's on those siblings very wildly. Uh. Richard Hogarth, 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.880 William's father was a teacher and a classical scholar, and 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:33.560 while he did have patrons, the family still struggled financially. Yeah. 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:35.640 Hogarth later in his life would talk about how his 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.239 dad had really been treated very poorly and he ended 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.760 up in deep debts. Some accounts say that his father 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.000 went to debtors prison, but I couldn't find a solid 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.480 verification on that, but that does kind of inform some 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.160 of his work going forward. And despite being the child 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.200 of an educator, though William was pretty disinterested in formal education. 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.880 He was really smart and he was curious, but even 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.240 from a young age, he was more inclined to draw 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.480 the to study texts. But it seemed that his father 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.800 was not exactly sure what to do to help William 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:07.880 find a path in life that would suit his interests. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.800 He wasn't against him pursuing art, but he didn't really 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:13.760 know what to do with it. So William ended up 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.079 looking for an apprenticeship. And this is another time where 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.280 I will say there are some accounts that suggest that 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.200 his father was in debtors prison and he had to 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.320 get the apprenticeship, and others that say that he just 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.280 knew his dad was not going to be much help 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.320 in in finding him a career path, so he went 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.520 and found one himself. At fifteen, he became a silversmith's 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.120 apprentice and he learned engraving skills. But his master in 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.280 this position might have hindered his development by giving him 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.960 a mediocre instruction, and Hogarth, once again, frustrated that his 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:48.560 mentors guidance was really lacking, opted to seek out information 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.840 about the trade on his own. So he was augmenting 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.640 this kind of weak training that he was getting with 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.680 self guided study, and during his apprenticeship, Hogarth studied the 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:01.880 world around him as much as his trade. He was 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.480 definitely a fan of all of the various entertainments offered 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.480 by early eighteenth century London, from theaters to body houses 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.440 to coffee houses where intellectuals gathered. He sort of was 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.560 one of those people I always think of as like 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.119 a student of life. He just wanted to go around 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.200 and see people doing all the things that people do 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.560 and learn from that. When Hogarth was twenty three, he 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.640 opened his own shop. In that same year he started 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:31.479 taking formal drawing classes. But the normal curriculum for drawing lessons, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.560 which was sketching live models or prepared tableau and attempting 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.800 to replicate other artists work, had the same effect on 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.320 Hogarth as early attempts at his education had. He was 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.880 not interested. We found it frustrating and limiting, and he 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.760 had turned to drawing school to expand the possibilities of 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.720 his engraving work, but he didn't think the classes were 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.480 actually going to help him achieve that goal, and so 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.160 he opted once again to rely on himself for his education, 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.359 and he began to train his observational skills because he 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.239 wanted to be able to draw real life subjects from memory. 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.200 So he developed his own improvisational style over time, and 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.400 simultaneously he was supporting himself through his regular engraving work. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.760 That work included projects like book illustration, so he was 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.520 getting some practical experience in commercial art, but this was 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.640 not particularly fulfilling. He would later say that the work 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.880 quote did little more than maintain myself and the usual 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:33.640 gaieties of life, but wasn't all a punctual paymaster. And 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.840 it wasn't long though, before he found himself attracted once 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.680 again to drawing school, but this time it was a 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.080 little different. It was a school housed in the home 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.640 of Sir James Thornhill. Thornhill was an accomplished artist. He 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:48.960 had been the official history painter in the courts of 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.640 George the First and George the Second, and he had 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:56.040 been knighted in seventy He was also a member of Parliament. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.719 He painted in the Italian Baroque style, and Hogarth was 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.279 a and of his work, and part of the appeal 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.200 of studying under Thornhill was the fact that Thornhill had 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.880 achieved a level of social standing that was unusual for 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.159 an artist. He wasn't toiling penniless at the whim of 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.120 a patron, although he was at odds with the neo 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.320 classical revival that was underway at the time. In an 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.240 effort to gain favor with Thornhill and make clear that 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.040 he felt they were of the same mindset regarding art, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.080 Hogarth even published an engraving at the time titled Masquerades 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:29.839 and Operas, which was a criticism of the trend to 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.839 embrace foreign art above the art that was actually created 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:38.120 in England. The engraving features, among other things, a fool 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.600 and a devil leading a crowd into the theater to 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.680 see the latest popular entertainment, while a woman with a 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.520 wheelbarrow carries away all the writings of Congreve, Drieden, Otway, 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:52.279 Shakespeare and Addison, and below the image is the following inscription, 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.440 could new dumb faustus to reform the age conjure up 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.479 Shakespeare's or Ben Johnson's Ghost. They'd blush for shame to 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.800 see the English stage debauched by fooleryes at so great 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.360 a cost. What would their main say should they behold 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:12.040 monsters and masquerades, where useful plays adorned the fruitful theater 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.920 of old and rival wits contended for the base. A 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.440 copy of disngraving, which is known as The Bad Taste 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.080 of the Town, was in the British Museum's collection and 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.720 while it's not on display, it is digitized and available 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.000 online and we will be linked in our show notes. Yeah. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.680 I feel like with all of Hogarth's work, we should 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.440 mention that it's worth going and looking at it for 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:36.720 yourself because we can describe it, and we will for 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.360 a couple of them describe them. But uh, they're very busy. 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.600 There is a lot going on in every single picture. Uh. 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.520 And that's part of his social commentary that he includes things. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.680 And it's kind of like you will never fully grasp 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:54.120 all of the sort of intensity of these these very 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.920 very detailed pieces until you actually see them for yourself, 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.120 So I encourage you to go look for them. Uh. 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.760 And publishing masquerades and operas had long term ramifications for 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.840 Hogarth's life and career. So the criticism of England's contemporary 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.240 art and culture scene and the connoisseurs in it, of 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.240 course earned him a number of enemies, and most prominent 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.920 among them was the architect Richard Boyle, who was the 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.240 third Earl of Burlington. He and others would kind of 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.360 have this rivalry with uh Hogarth for the rest of 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:25.640 his life, and it was not the first time in 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.080 his early career that he would butt heads with art patrons. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.880 After several years of study with Thornhill, Hogarth believed he 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.640 had learned enough that he should begin a painting career 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.520 in Earnest. One of his first patrons was a tapestry 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.480 maker named Joshua Morris, who had requested a painting from Hogarth, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.720 and when Hogarth delivered the art, Morris refused to accept it, 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.600 claiming that Hogarth had not finished it and that it 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.560 was apparent that the artist was really an engraver and 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:59.440 not a professional painter. William Hogarth then sued Morris for 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.400 his money and brought a number of expert witnesses to 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.560 the trial, including Thornhill, to a test that yes, the 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.600 work involved was a complete painting, and that Hogarth should 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.400 be paid the money that he was owed. The court 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.440 found in Hogarth's favor. Yeah, I think this is a 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.040 time when artists were not so willing to really like 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.600 pursue legal action when someone said, oh no, I don't 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:23.600 want that painting after all, But he did. That will 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:25.640 come up again in a little bit that he's willing 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.360 to take legal action for his rightful money. Also in 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.280 Segarth painted his first dated painting. Up to this point 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.559 he had produced some plates and other things, but they 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.880 didn't have dates on them. And this is the Beggar's Opera, 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.480 And it was a recreation of a scene from a 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.240 current production of the farctical play. And it was an 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.760 example of just how well he had trained his memory 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.440 to recall detail, because apparently, according to many people, he 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.760 basically perfectly recreated the scene as it had played on 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.520 the stage, even though he had of course gone away 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.160 and painted it later. He actually ended up painting five 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:02.320 different versions of the scene. Seventeen twenty nine, Hogarth and 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.160 Thornhill's relationship took on a new dimension. William became Thornhill's 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.080 son in law when he and Jane Thornhill eloped and 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.240 in his early career, Hogarth became known for paintings known 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.560 as conversation pieces, and these were portraits of small groups 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.679 of people, depicting them in a casual, informal moment, like 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.960 they're having a light conversation. And these also tended to 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:29.080 be physically small paintings. And as Hogarth's conversation pieces became popular, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.080 they did afford him a degree of financial success, but 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.439 he also started to find them really boring to work on, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.240 and this was in part because each individual piece didn't 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.440 really bring in all that much money. He was a 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.760 very quick worker, but he had to basically keep cranking 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.240 them out at a rapid pace to keep money coming in. 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:49.760 But even as he continued speedily cranking out these conversation pieces, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.360 he also worked on other projects for which he had 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:57.440 greater enthusiasm. And these pieces were humorous, realistic scenes, and 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:02.480 like masquerades and operas, these works often skewered social trends 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:06.360 and preached morality. If they had been published as sequential 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.720 art on a page, they would look very similar to 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.840 comics and style, but they came out as full size prints, 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.120 each one taking up an entire page of its own, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.800 and this was where he truly hit his stride as 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.640 an artist. Yeah, this is really what made him famous, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.679 uh and what continues to make him sort of an 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.040 important figure in the art world. And he was very 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.760 savvy about the success that started to come with it, 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.120 so much so that it did, as I mentioned, earliterally 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.600 to some legislation. We're going to talk about all of 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:35.360 that in just a moment, but first we will pause 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:45.680 and have a little sponsor break. Whereas Hogarth's conversation pieces 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.800 offered him financial stability, his moral satires brought in a 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:52.319 great deal more money, so much so that he reached 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.439 a point where he really had financial independence. He could 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.320 work on the things that he chose to do, rather 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.000 than depending on commissions or patronage to meet his own 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:04.200 going financial needs. As prints of Hogress engravings were made 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.680 to sell to a wider audience, he was aware of 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:11.200 the risk that copycats could plagiarize his work, and that 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.160 is because that had happened to him. He published a 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:19.480 very popular series called A Harlot's Progress in seventeen thirty three, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.800 and the six paintings, which were then adapted into plates 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.560 that made up A Harlot's Progress were produced at a 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.839 time when the topic of prostitution and sex workers were 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.480 the focus of a lot of attention in London. In 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.240 the late seventeen twenties and early seventeen thirties, there was 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.000 this effort on the part of city officials to bring 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.160 morality back to London streets by working to eliminate or 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:44.600 at least reduce the obvious appearance of prostitution. But out 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.520 of the initial vilification of women that this sort of 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:53.840 charge started, there was this secondary wave of characterization of 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.960 women's sex workers that made them seem more like innocence 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.320 who had been trapped by corruptors. And this was a 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.880 debate that was going on in papers throughout London at 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.800 the time, and Hogarth's engraving told a tale along the 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.040 lines of that second characterization of an innocent who falls 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.720 into this life through no desire of her own to 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.480 pursue it. In the first plate, an innocent young woman 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.160 named Mall hack About arrives in the city from the country, 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.320 thinking she'll make her way in a trade such as dressmaking, 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.800 but she's intercepted by a brothel keeper named Mother Needham, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.320 who has shown assessing Mall's attributes. And a second plate 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.640 Mall has become a kept mistress living in luxury, but 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.600 then she's caught cheating on her keeper, and by the 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.240 third plate, Mall has been cast out by that keeper 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.880 and has become a prostitute on the street. Uh and 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.400 in plate four she has been imprisoned for that. In 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:49.480 plate five she is once again a free woman, but 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.920 at this point she has an illegitimate child, and she 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.560 is dying from a sexually transmitted disease. Plate six is 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.400 Mall's funeral, attended by women who also work in the 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.960 sex trade, and men who appear to be more interested 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.080 in taking advantage of those women than in mourning the 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.439 dead person before them Mall. Even the parson in that 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.880 final plate has his hand in the skirt of one 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.440 of the other mourners. Because of the popularity of A. 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.319 Harlot's Progress, fake copies were produced all over London by 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.200 CD printers hoping to cash in on Hogarth's work, and naturally, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.600 the artist was incensed so much so that he took 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.880 legal action. So, of course, it was not really feasible 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.040 to chase down all of the various printers who had 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.320 been making unlicensed copies of these popular plates. So William Hogarth, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.000 along with several other artists, went to Parliament and they 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.479 made a case that their work should be legally protected. 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.560 And after hearing the artists case, a piece of legislation 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.920 called the Engravers Act was introduced in seventeen thirty four 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.240 with language that would protect engravings that featured original designs, 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.160 and it was signed into law on June seventeen thirty five, 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.520 and it became known by the nickname Hogarth's Act. You'll 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.680 sometimes also see it written as Hogarth's Law. While the 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.360 Engravers Act was in legislation but not yet assigned law, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.920 William Hogarth actually had another series that he was ready 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.080 to publish, but he was not willing to do so 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.760 until there were legal protections in place to prevent pirated 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:18.160 copies from circulating. And in the meantime, Hogarth's mentor and 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.960 father in law, Thornhill, died in seventeen thirty four, and 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.760 after the loss, Hogarth decided that he would reopen Thornhill's 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.000 drawing school, which had never been a particularly successful venture. 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.160 Hogarth's version became much more of a salon where artists 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:37.000 shared ideas and discussed their work. Once the Engravers Act 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.320 was law, Hogarth released the series he had been withholding, 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.400 titled A Rake's Progress. The series, like A Harlot's Progress, 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.160 was painted an oil first and then adapted as a 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.160 set of print engravings. The rake in this narrative is 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.960 Tom Rakewell, a young man of leisure. In the first scene, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.120 young Tom has freshly come into his fortune as his 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.560 wealthy and apparently miserly there has died. Tom, wasting no 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.400 time spending his new found money, is being fitted for 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.120 a fancy new suit while simultaneously paying off a paramore 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.160 who appears to be pregnant and heartbroken. She will appear 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.240 in later plates as well. In scene too, Tom is 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.840 surrounded in his home by an assortment of people, all 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.400 vying for his attention in his financial favor. By the 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.080 time the viewer sees Tom and the third scene, he 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.480 has fully descended into a life of debauchery. He's in 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.040 a brothel taking part in an orgy. And this is 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:34.200 a good time to mention that in Hogarth's works on morality, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.600 even though sexual situations are conveyed, there's no nudity, but 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.080 there is the suggestion of it. So to modernize the 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.320 plate three looks like a wild party. It might take 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.400 a moment for the viewer to actually register exactly what's 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.160 going on. Yeah, he's you know, he is taking part 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:58.040 in this big thing, but it's not overtly portrayed. I mean, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.200 once you start seeing the clues and you realize, like, oh, 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.600 people's hands are in each other's clothes and stuff, but 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:06.600 it's not quite so graphic as you might be envisioning. 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.159 And in the fourth scene, Tom is about to be 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.720 arrested for the debts that he's accrued in his debaucherous lifestyle, 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.639 when that same young woman from the first plate that 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.360 he bought off steps in and she pays the bailiff 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.240 all of her money so that she can save him. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.439 And in the fifth scene, Tom is getting married, but 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.520 not to that kind young woman who saved him though 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.200 he had wronged her, but instead to an elderly heiress 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.600 in the hopes of regaining a fortune in the match. 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.520 The sixth image is a seedy scene. Tom is anna 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.320 gambling den. The room is on fire, but neither Tom 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.080 nor the other gambler's notice because they are so absorbed 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.639 in the fortunes that they stand to gain or lose. 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.800 Tom appears to be pleading to God for assistance in 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.280 his bet, and Tom is pictured in Debtor's prison. In 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.920 the seventh image in the series, he has written a 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.119 play in the hopes of selling it to make some money. 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.959 It's kind of sitting to the side, and his wife 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.480 is pictured, that same woman that he married for her money, 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.719 but at this point she has gaunt and clearly not 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.960 the wealthy woman she once was. And the final scene 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:14.320 shows Tom in the Bethlehem Royal Hospital known colloquially as Bedlam, 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.280 where the insane and impoverished of London were sent, and 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.280 he is naked at this point save for a ragged 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.720 cloth that straped over him, and a wealthy woman who 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.719 has come to see the spectacle of Bedlam, looks on. 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.360 She has paid for admission to come and sort of 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:33.880 observe the lower creatures in this horrible condition. This particular 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.080 series was popular when it first appeared, and it's remained 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.280 so in the centuries since. In ninety five, the story 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.800 of Tom Rakewell was adapted into a ballet, became a 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.840 film in nineteen forty five, and an opera by Igor 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:52.159 Stravinsky in nineteen fifty one. The original painting series of 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.119 A Rake's Progress was purchased at auction in eighteen o 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.000 two by the wife architect Sir john Soon. Today they 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.960 are part of the Sir john Son Museum collection. Unfortunately, 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.080 the original paintings for A Harlot's Progress were lost in 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.520 a fire in seventeen fifty five. Yeah, and A Rake's Progress. 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.560 There have been even more modern adaptations and other works 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:14.159 inspired by it, but those are the sort of the 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.159 key points where in the more modern age it suddenly 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.680 had this resurgence of interest. And both of these series 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.040 of works, as well as others that he worked on 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.919 during the seventeen thirties and seventeen forties and some in 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.879 the seventies fifties, are filled with these details like I 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.120 mentioned before, that add to the story and in some 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.520 cases they make direct social or political commentary. In some 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.600 cases he'll have pieces of art on the walls in 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.720 the backgrounds that have meaning. And uh, some of the 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.560 people that are depicted as supporting characters in these works 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.520 were actually well known figures of London at the time. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.480 Sometimes they are cast in roles that make it clear 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.960 that William Hogarth did not think very highly of them. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.840 Not long after the release of Our Rake's Progress, Hogarth 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.960 was elected as one of the governors of Britain's oldest hospital, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.439 Saint Bartholomew's. He can we did to the decor of 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.119 the facility by painting two large pieces for the main staircase, 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.159 which were the historical paintings Pool of Bethesda and the 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.159 Good Samaritan. Yeah, that hospital was founded, I believe in 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.960 the eleven hundreds. Uh, And we're going to talk about 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.520 the unique legacy of those two paintings there, but first 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:18.480 we're gonna pause for a word from one of our 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:31.280 fam sponsors. Those paintings in St. Bartholomew's, which are often 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.679 mistaken for murals because they take up whole walls, but 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.680 they are in fact canvases, are still in the hospital 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.320 today and they have taken on sort of a unique role. 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.119 In addition to acting as massive decor, the figures in 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:47.800 those paintings are seven feet tall, so extrapolate from that 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.760 how big like full scenes featuring people that size would be. 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.520 They are also used in a really kind of interesting 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:57.480 way as teaching tools. It's believed that Hogarth used patients 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.920 from the hospital as his models for the paintings, in 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.800 he captured their illnesses pretty accurately and without exaggeration, and 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.120 as such, the characters in the paintings are sometimes introduced 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:12.840 as topics of diagnosis discussion with medical students. Hogarth subjects 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.439 display conditions which could be mayetonia, congenita and ricketts and 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.199 syphilis and gout, among others, and so it's kind of 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.360 an interesting way to um test and develop observational skills, 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.800 which I think is just sort of fantastic to go, hey, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.720 what do you think this person in the painting has. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.440 While these two large scale historical paintings are not considered 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.560 to be Hogarth's best work, they are an important part 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:39.359 of the hospital's history because they are in an active space, 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:43.040 they need constant upkeep, and his lifetime Hogarth covered the 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.439 expenses to do so himself. He also requested that the 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.639 two paintings never be varnished, though at some point that 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:54.200 request was disregarded repeatedly. During a cleaning of the paintings 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:58.320 in nineteen thirty seven, layers of varnish were carefully removed, 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.600 and after his work on the same Bartholomew's Staircase project 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.320 was complete, Hogarth turned to more traditional portraiture, and one 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:07.359 of his first portraits in this period was a painting 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.200 of philanthropist Thomas Corum, which he displayed at an orphan's 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.120 hospital that Coream had founded, and he also convinced other 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.560 artists to donate their work to the hospital when it 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:20.840 was completed in seventeen forty five. His famous self portrait, 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.480 The Painter and His Pug was created in seventeen forty five, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.159 and that same year he released another series called Marriage 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.840 a la Mode and the exhibition description of Hogarth's work 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.000 at the Tate Museum in two thousand and seven, it 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:38.560