Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. Since William Hogarth got a name drop
Speaker 1: in this week's episode on Gin, we thought we would
Speaker 1: bring our episode on him out for Today's Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1: This one originally came out July Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm
Speaker 1: Trac V. Wilson, and today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: an artist. But his story really involves so much more
Speaker 1: than art. It involves satire and social criticism, and it
Speaker 1: even gets into some legislation for artist rights. But one
Speaker 1: thing we should point out is that his satire and
Speaker 1: social criticism was being made in the early seventeen hundreds
Speaker 1: when the society he was criticizing was very different than ours.
Speaker 1: It was debuted in a lot of ways. Yes, so
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that are viewed very
Speaker 1: differently than we view them. Uh. There is discussion of
Speaker 1: of sex workers in this episode, not any details, but
Speaker 1: they come up in some of his prints, as well
Speaker 1: as some violence, some drug use, things like that come up.
Speaker 1: So just be aware that that's that's in the hopper
Speaker 1: and that it will be again based on on the
Speaker 1: views of England in the seventeen thirties and forties and fifties. Well,
Speaker 1: and especially because our artwork for this one is a
Speaker 1: self portrait of the artist with his dog, and it
Speaker 1: looks so sweet. It looks very sweet. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I could just see teachers saying, hey, this would be
Speaker 1: a great episode to share with the kids. Um, and
Speaker 1: it might be depending on the age of your kids,
Speaker 1: the kids you're thinking of, but you would want still,
Speaker 1: I think to frame it and kind of listen first,
Speaker 1: and uh, decide based on the actual content. But we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about William Hogarth, who was in English
Speaker 1: artist that as I said, uh, you know, his life
Speaker 1: story involves a lot more than just art. William Hogarth
Speaker 1: was born to Richard Hogarth and Anne Gibbons in London, England,
Speaker 1: on November tenth seven. He did have some siblings, although
Speaker 1: the tally's on those siblings very wildly. Uh. Richard Hogarth,
Speaker 1: William's father was a teacher and a classical scholar, and
Speaker 1: while he did have patrons, the family still struggled financially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hogarth later in his life would talk about how his
Speaker 1: dad had really been treated very poorly and he ended
Speaker 1: up in deep debts. Some accounts say that his father
Speaker 1: went to debtors prison, but I couldn't find a solid
Speaker 1: verification on that, but that does kind of inform some
Speaker 1: of his work going forward. And despite being the child
Speaker 1: of an educator, though William was pretty disinterested in formal education.
Speaker 1: He was really smart and he was curious, but even
Speaker 1: from a young age, he was more inclined to draw
Speaker 1: the to study texts. But it seemed that his father
Speaker 1: was not exactly sure what to do to help William
Speaker 1: find a path in life that would suit his interests.
Speaker 1: He wasn't against him pursuing art, but he didn't really
Speaker 1: know what to do with it. So William ended up
Speaker 1: looking for an apprenticeship. And this is another time where
Speaker 1: I will say there are some accounts that suggest that
Speaker 1: his father was in debtors prison and he had to
Speaker 1: get the apprenticeship, and others that say that he just
Speaker 1: knew his dad was not going to be much help
Speaker 1: in in finding him a career path, so he went
Speaker 1: and found one himself. At fifteen, he became a silversmith's
Speaker 1: apprentice and he learned engraving skills. But his master in
Speaker 1: this position might have hindered his development by giving him
Speaker 1: a mediocre instruction, and Hogarth, once again, frustrated that his
Speaker 1: mentors guidance was really lacking, opted to seek out information
Speaker 1: about the trade on his own. So he was augmenting
Speaker 1: this kind of weak training that he was getting with
Speaker 1: self guided study, and during his apprenticeship, Hogarth studied the
Speaker 1: world around him as much as his trade. He was
Speaker 1: definitely a fan of all of the various entertainments offered
Speaker 1: by early eighteenth century London, from theaters to body houses
Speaker 1: to coffee houses where intellectuals gathered. He sort of was
Speaker 1: one of those people I always think of as like
Speaker 1: a student of life. He just wanted to go around
Speaker 1: and see people doing all the things that people do
Speaker 1: and learn from that. When Hogarth was twenty three, he
Speaker 1: opened his own shop. In that same year he started
Speaker 1: taking formal drawing classes. But the normal curriculum for drawing lessons,
Speaker 1: which was sketching live models or prepared tableau and attempting
Speaker 1: to replicate other artists work, had the same effect on
Speaker 1: Hogarth as early attempts at his education had. He was
Speaker 1: not interested. We found it frustrating and limiting, and he
Speaker 1: had turned to drawing school to expand the possibilities of
Speaker 1: his engraving work, but he didn't think the classes were
Speaker 1: actually going to help him achieve that goal, and so
Speaker 1: he opted once again to rely on himself for his education,
Speaker 1: and he began to train his observational skills because he
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to draw real life subjects from memory.
Speaker 1: So he developed his own improvisational style over time, and
Speaker 1: simultaneously he was supporting himself through his regular engraving work.
Speaker 1: That work included projects like book illustration, so he was
Speaker 1: getting some practical experience in commercial art, but this was
Speaker 1: not particularly fulfilling. He would later say that the work
Speaker 1: quote did little more than maintain myself and the usual
Speaker 1: gaieties of life, but wasn't all a punctual paymaster. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't long though, before he found himself attracted once
Speaker 1: again to drawing school, but this time it was a
Speaker 1: little different. It was a school housed in the home
Speaker 1: of Sir James Thornhill. Thornhill was an accomplished artist. He
Speaker 1: had been the official history painter in the courts of
Speaker 1: George the First and George the Second, and he had
Speaker 1: been knighted in seventy He was also a member of Parliament.
Speaker 1: He painted in the Italian Baroque style, and Hogarth was
Speaker 1: a and of his work, and part of the appeal
Speaker 1: of studying under Thornhill was the fact that Thornhill had
Speaker 1: achieved a level of social standing that was unusual for
Speaker 1: an artist. He wasn't toiling penniless at the whim of
Speaker 1: a patron, although he was at odds with the neo
Speaker 1: classical revival that was underway at the time. In an
Speaker 1: effort to gain favor with Thornhill and make clear that
Speaker 1: he felt they were of the same mindset regarding art,
Speaker 1: Hogarth even published an engraving at the time titled Masquerades
Speaker 1: and Operas, which was a criticism of the trend to
Speaker 1: embrace foreign art above the art that was actually created
Speaker 1: in England. The engraving features, among other things, a fool
Speaker 1: and a devil leading a crowd into the theater to
Speaker 1: see the latest popular entertainment, while a woman with a
Speaker 1: wheelbarrow carries away all the writings of Congreve, Drieden, Otway,
Speaker 1: Shakespeare and Addison, and below the image is the following inscription,
Speaker 1: could new dumb faustus to reform the age conjure up
Speaker 1: Shakespeare's or Ben Johnson's Ghost. They'd blush for shame to
Speaker 1: see the English stage debauched by fooleryes at so great
Speaker 1: a cost. What would their main say should they behold
Speaker 1: monsters and masquerades, where useful plays adorned the fruitful theater
Speaker 1: of old and rival wits contended for the base. A
Speaker 1: copy of disngraving, which is known as The Bad Taste
Speaker 1: of the Town, was in the British Museum's collection and
Speaker 1: while it's not on display, it is digitized and available
Speaker 1: online and we will be linked in our show notes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like with all of Hogarth's work, we should
Speaker 1: mention that it's worth going and looking at it for
Speaker 1: yourself because we can describe it, and we will for
Speaker 1: a couple of them describe them. But uh, they're very busy.
Speaker 1: There is a lot going on in every single picture. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's part of his social commentary that he includes things.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like you will never fully grasp
Speaker 1: all of the sort of intensity of these these very
Speaker 1: very detailed pieces until you actually see them for yourself,
Speaker 1: So I encourage you to go look for them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And publishing masquerades and operas had long term ramifications for
Speaker 1: Hogarth's life and career. So the criticism of England's contemporary
Speaker 1: art and culture scene and the connoisseurs in it, of
Speaker 1: course earned him a number of enemies, and most prominent
Speaker 1: among them was the architect Richard Boyle, who was the
Speaker 1: third Earl of Burlington. He and others would kind of
Speaker 1: have this rivalry with uh Hogarth for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, and it was not the first time in
Speaker 1: his early career that he would butt heads with art patrons.
Speaker 1: After several years of study with Thornhill, Hogarth believed he
Speaker 1: had learned enough that he should begin a painting career
Speaker 1: in Earnest. One of his first patrons was a tapestry
Speaker 1: maker named Joshua Morris, who had requested a painting from Hogarth,
Speaker 1: and when Hogarth delivered the art, Morris refused to accept it,
Speaker 1: claiming that Hogarth had not finished it and that it
Speaker 1: was apparent that the artist was really an engraver and
Speaker 1: not a professional painter. William Hogarth then sued Morris for
Speaker 1: his money and brought a number of expert witnesses to
Speaker 1: the trial, including Thornhill, to a test that yes, the
Speaker 1: work involved was a complete painting, and that Hogarth should
Speaker 1: be paid the money that he was owed. The court
Speaker 1: found in Hogarth's favor. Yeah, I think this is a
Speaker 1: time when artists were not so willing to really like
Speaker 1: pursue legal action when someone said, oh no, I don't
Speaker 1: want that painting after all, But he did. That will
Speaker 1: come up again in a little bit that he's willing
Speaker 1: to take legal action for his rightful money. Also in
Speaker 1: Segarth painted his first dated painting. Up to this point
Speaker 1: he had produced some plates and other things, but they
Speaker 1: didn't have dates on them. And this is the Beggar's Opera,
Speaker 1: And it was a recreation of a scene from a
Speaker 1: current production of the farctical play. And it was an
Speaker 1: example of just how well he had trained his memory
Speaker 1: to recall detail, because apparently, according to many people, he
Speaker 1: basically perfectly recreated the scene as it had played on
Speaker 1: the stage, even though he had of course gone away
Speaker 1: and painted it later. He actually ended up painting five
Speaker 1: different versions of the scene. Seventeen twenty nine, Hogarth and
Speaker 1: Thornhill's relationship took on a new dimension. William became Thornhill's
Speaker 1: son in law when he and Jane Thornhill eloped and
Speaker 1: in his early career, Hogarth became known for paintings known
Speaker 1: as conversation pieces, and these were portraits of small groups
Speaker 1: of people, depicting them in a casual, informal moment, like
Speaker 1: they're having a light conversation. And these also tended to
Speaker 1: be physically small paintings. And as Hogarth's conversation pieces became popular,
Speaker 1: they did afford him a degree of financial success, but
Speaker 1: he also started to find them really boring to work on,
Speaker 1: and this was in part because each individual piece didn't
Speaker 1: really bring in all that much money. He was a
Speaker 1: very quick worker, but he had to basically keep cranking
Speaker 1: them out at a rapid pace to keep money coming in.
Speaker 1: But even as he continued speedily cranking out these conversation pieces,
Speaker 1: he also worked on other projects for which he had
Speaker 1: greater enthusiasm. And these pieces were humorous, realistic scenes, and
Speaker 1: like masquerades and operas, these works often skewered social trends
Speaker 1: and preached morality. If they had been published as sequential
Speaker 1: art on a page, they would look very similar to
Speaker 1: comics and style, but they came out as full size prints,
Speaker 1: each one taking up an entire page of its own,
Speaker 1: and this was where he truly hit his stride as
Speaker 1: an artist. Yeah, this is really what made him famous,
Speaker 1: uh and what continues to make him sort of an
Speaker 1: important figure in the art world. And he was very
Speaker 1: savvy about the success that started to come with it,
Speaker 1: so much so that it did, as I mentioned, earliterally
Speaker 1: to some legislation. We're going to talk about all of
Speaker 1: that in just a moment, but first we will pause
Speaker 1: and have a little sponsor break. Whereas Hogarth's conversation pieces
Speaker 1: offered him financial stability, his moral satires brought in a
Speaker 1: great deal more money, so much so that he reached
Speaker 1: a point where he really had financial independence. He could
Speaker 1: work on the things that he chose to do, rather
Speaker 1: than depending on commissions or patronage to meet his own
Speaker 1: going financial needs. As prints of Hogress engravings were made
Speaker 1: to sell to a wider audience, he was aware of
Speaker 1: the risk that copycats could plagiarize his work, and that
Speaker 1: is because that had happened to him. He published a
Speaker 1: very popular series called A Harlot's Progress in seventeen thirty three,
Speaker 1: and the six paintings, which were then adapted into plates
Speaker 1: that made up A Harlot's Progress were produced at a
Speaker 1: time when the topic of prostitution and sex workers were
Speaker 1: the focus of a lot of attention in London. In
Speaker 1: the late seventeen twenties and early seventeen thirties, there was
Speaker 1: this effort on the part of city officials to bring
Speaker 1: morality back to London streets by working to eliminate or
Speaker 1: at least reduce the obvious appearance of prostitution. But out
Speaker 1: of the initial vilification of women that this sort of
Speaker 1: charge started, there was this secondary wave of characterization of
Speaker 1: women's sex workers that made them seem more like innocence
Speaker 1: who had been trapped by corruptors. And this was a
Speaker 1: debate that was going on in papers throughout London at
Speaker 1: the time, and Hogarth's engraving told a tale along the
Speaker 1: lines of that second characterization of an innocent who falls
Speaker 1: into this life through no desire of her own to
Speaker 1: pursue it. In the first plate, an innocent young woman
Speaker 1: named Mall hack About arrives in the city from the country,
Speaker 1: thinking she'll make her way in a trade such as dressmaking,
Speaker 1: but she's intercepted by a brothel keeper named Mother Needham,
Speaker 1: who has shown assessing Mall's attributes. And a second plate
Speaker 1: Mall has become a kept mistress living in luxury, but
Speaker 1: then she's caught cheating on her keeper, and by the
Speaker 1: third plate, Mall has been cast out by that keeper
Speaker 1: and has become a prostitute on the street. Uh and
Speaker 1: in plate four she has been imprisoned for that. In
Speaker 1: plate five she is once again a free woman, but
Speaker 1: at this point she has an illegitimate child, and she
Speaker 1: is dying from a sexually transmitted disease. Plate six is
Speaker 1: Mall's funeral, attended by women who also work in the
Speaker 1: sex trade, and men who appear to be more interested
Speaker 1: in taking advantage of those women than in mourning the
Speaker 1: dead person before them Mall. Even the parson in that
Speaker 1: final plate has his hand in the skirt of one
Speaker 1: of the other mourners. Because of the popularity of A.
Speaker 1: Harlot's Progress, fake copies were produced all over London by
Speaker 1: CD printers hoping to cash in on Hogarth's work, and naturally,
Speaker 1: the artist was incensed so much so that he took
Speaker 1: legal action. So, of course, it was not really feasible
Speaker 1: to chase down all of the various printers who had
Speaker 1: been making unlicensed copies of these popular plates. So William Hogarth,
Speaker 1: along with several other artists, went to Parliament and they
Speaker 1: made a case that their work should be legally protected.
Speaker 1: And after hearing the artists case, a piece of legislation
Speaker 1: called the Engravers Act was introduced in seventeen thirty four
Speaker 1: with language that would protect engravings that featured original designs,
Speaker 1: and it was signed into law on June seventeen thirty five,
Speaker 1: and it became known by the nickname Hogarth's Act. You'll
Speaker 1: sometimes also see it written as Hogarth's Law. While the
Speaker 1: Engravers Act was in legislation but not yet assigned law,
Speaker 1: William Hogarth actually had another series that he was ready
Speaker 1: to publish, but he was not willing to do so
Speaker 1: until there were legal protections in place to prevent pirated
Speaker 1: copies from circulating. And in the meantime, Hogarth's mentor and
Speaker 1: father in law, Thornhill, died in seventeen thirty four, and
Speaker 1: after the loss, Hogarth decided that he would reopen Thornhill's
Speaker 1: drawing school, which had never been a particularly successful venture.
Speaker 1: Hogarth's version became much more of a salon where artists
Speaker 1: shared ideas and discussed their work. Once the Engravers Act
Speaker 1: was law, Hogarth released the series he had been withholding,
Speaker 1: titled A Rake's Progress. The series, like A Harlot's Progress,
Speaker 1: was painted an oil first and then adapted as a
Speaker 1: set of print engravings. The rake in this narrative is
Speaker 1: Tom Rakewell, a young man of leisure. In the first scene,
Speaker 1: young Tom has freshly come into his fortune as his
Speaker 1: wealthy and apparently miserly there has died. Tom, wasting no
Speaker 1: time spending his new found money, is being fitted for
Speaker 1: a fancy new suit while simultaneously paying off a paramore
Speaker 1: who appears to be pregnant and heartbroken. She will appear
Speaker 1: in later plates as well. In scene too, Tom is
Speaker 1: surrounded in his home by an assortment of people, all
Speaker 1: vying for his attention in his financial favor. By the
Speaker 1: time the viewer sees Tom and the third scene, he
Speaker 1: has fully descended into a life of debauchery. He's in
Speaker 1: a brothel taking part in an orgy. And this is
Speaker 1: a good time to mention that in Hogarth's works on morality,
Speaker 1: even though sexual situations are conveyed, there's no nudity, but
Speaker 1: there is the suggestion of it. So to modernize the
Speaker 1: plate three looks like a wild party. It might take
Speaker 1: a moment for the viewer to actually register exactly what's
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, he's you know, he is taking part
Speaker 1: in this big thing, but it's not overtly portrayed. I mean,
Speaker 1: once you start seeing the clues and you realize, like, oh,
Speaker 1: people's hands are in each other's clothes and stuff, but
Speaker 1: it's not quite so graphic as you might be envisioning.
Speaker 1: And in the fourth scene, Tom is about to be
Speaker 1: arrested for the debts that he's accrued in his debaucherous lifestyle,
Speaker 1: when that same young woman from the first plate that
Speaker 1: he bought off steps in and she pays the bailiff
Speaker 1: all of her money so that she can save him.
Speaker 1: And in the fifth scene, Tom is getting married, but
Speaker 1: not to that kind young woman who saved him though
Speaker 1: he had wronged her, but instead to an elderly heiress
Speaker 1: in the hopes of regaining a fortune in the match.
Speaker 1: The sixth image is a seedy scene. Tom is anna
Speaker 1: gambling den. The room is on fire, but neither Tom
Speaker 1: nor the other gambler's notice because they are so absorbed
Speaker 1: in the fortunes that they stand to gain or lose.
Speaker 1: Tom appears to be pleading to God for assistance in
Speaker 1: his bet, and Tom is pictured in Debtor's prison. In
Speaker 1: the seventh image in the series, he has written a
Speaker 1: play in the hopes of selling it to make some money.
Speaker 1: It's kind of sitting to the side, and his wife
Speaker 1: is pictured, that same woman that he married for her money,
Speaker 1: but at this point she has gaunt and clearly not
Speaker 1: the wealthy woman she once was. And the final scene
Speaker 1: shows Tom in the Bethlehem Royal Hospital known colloquially as Bedlam,
Speaker 1: where the insane and impoverished of London were sent, and
Speaker 1: he is naked at this point save for a ragged
Speaker 1: cloth that straped over him, and a wealthy woman who
Speaker 1: has come to see the spectacle of Bedlam, looks on.
Speaker 1: She has paid for admission to come and sort of
Speaker 1: observe the lower creatures in this horrible condition. This particular
Speaker 1: series was popular when it first appeared, and it's remained
Speaker 1: so in the centuries since. In ninety five, the story
Speaker 1: of Tom Rakewell was adapted into a ballet, became a
Speaker 1: film in nineteen forty five, and an opera by Igor
Speaker 1: Stravinsky in nineteen fifty one. The original painting series of
Speaker 1: A Rake's Progress was purchased at auction in eighteen o
Speaker 1: two by the wife architect Sir john Soon. Today they
Speaker 1: are part of the Sir john Son Museum collection. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the original paintings for A Harlot's Progress were lost in
Speaker 1: a fire in seventeen fifty five. Yeah, and A Rake's Progress.
Speaker 1: There have been even more modern adaptations and other works
Speaker 1: inspired by it, but those are the sort of the
Speaker 1: key points where in the more modern age it suddenly
Speaker 1: had this resurgence of interest. And both of these series
Speaker 1: of works, as well as others that he worked on
Speaker 1: during the seventeen thirties and seventeen forties and some in
Speaker 1: the seventies fifties, are filled with these details like I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, that add to the story and in some
Speaker 1: cases they make direct social or political commentary. In some
Speaker 1: cases he'll have pieces of art on the walls in
Speaker 1: the backgrounds that have meaning. And uh, some of the
Speaker 1: people that are depicted as supporting characters in these works
Speaker 1: were actually well known figures of London at the time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they are cast in roles that make it clear
Speaker 1: that William Hogarth did not think very highly of them.
Speaker 1: Not long after the release of Our Rake's Progress, Hogarth
Speaker 1: was elected as one of the governors of Britain's oldest hospital,
Speaker 1: Saint Bartholomew's. He can we did to the decor of
Speaker 1: the facility by painting two large pieces for the main staircase,
Speaker 1: which were the historical paintings Pool of Bethesda and the
Speaker 1: Good Samaritan. Yeah, that hospital was founded, I believe in
Speaker 1: the eleven hundreds. Uh, And we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the unique legacy of those two paintings there, but first
Speaker 1: we're gonna pause for a word from one of our
Speaker 1: fam sponsors. Those paintings in St. Bartholomew's, which are often
Speaker 1: mistaken for murals because they take up whole walls, but
Speaker 1: they are in fact canvases, are still in the hospital
Speaker 1: today and they have taken on sort of a unique role.
Speaker 1: In addition to acting as massive decor, the figures in
Speaker 1: those paintings are seven feet tall, so extrapolate from that
Speaker 1: how big like full scenes featuring people that size would be.
Speaker 1: They are also used in a really kind of interesting
Speaker 1: way as teaching tools. It's believed that Hogarth used patients
Speaker 1: from the hospital as his models for the paintings, in
Speaker 1: he captured their illnesses pretty accurately and without exaggeration, and
Speaker 1: as such, the characters in the paintings are sometimes introduced
Speaker 1: as topics of diagnosis discussion with medical students. Hogarth subjects
Speaker 1: display conditions which could be mayetonia, congenita and ricketts and
Speaker 1: syphilis and gout, among others, and so it's kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting way to um test and develop observational skills,
Speaker 1: which I think is just sort of fantastic to go, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you think this person in the painting has.
Speaker 1: While these two large scale historical paintings are not considered
Speaker 1: to be Hogarth's best work, they are an important part
Speaker 1: of the hospital's history because they are in an active space,
Speaker 1: they need constant upkeep, and his lifetime Hogarth covered the
Speaker 1: expenses to do so himself. He also requested that the
Speaker 1: two paintings never be varnished, though at some point that
Speaker 1: request was disregarded repeatedly. During a cleaning of the paintings
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven, layers of varnish were carefully removed,
Speaker 1: and after his work on the same Bartholomew's Staircase project
Speaker 1: was complete, Hogarth turned to more traditional portraiture, and one
Speaker 1: of his first portraits in this period was a painting
Speaker 1: of philanthropist Thomas Corum, which he displayed at an orphan's
Speaker 1: hospital that Coream had founded, and he also convinced other
Speaker 1: artists to donate their work to the hospital when it
Speaker 1: was completed in seventeen forty five. His famous self portrait,
Speaker 1: The Painter and His Pug was created in seventeen forty five,
Speaker 1: and that same year he released another series called Marriage
Speaker 1: a la Mode and the exhibition description of Hogarth's work
Speaker 1: at the Tate Museum in two thousand and seven, it
Speaker 1: was described as follows, The satirical thrust of Marriage allah
Speaker 1: Mode is as much about patronage, aesthetics, and taste as
Speaker 1: it is about marriage and morals. Over and above the
Speaker 1: title itself, Marriage allah Mode includes Italian and Dutch old masters,
Speaker 1: French portraiture and furnishings, Oriental decorative arts, an Italian castrato
Speaker 1: singer and a French dancing master, a turbined black page boy,
Speaker 1: a masquerade reference, a banjo and an aristocratic toilet, and
Speaker 1: even syphilis, which Lord Squanderfield probably contracted abroad and was
Speaker 1: popularly known as the French pox. Thus his emasculated and
Speaker 1: diseased body is additionally emblematic of the spread of quote
Speaker 1: foreign culture that has infected and weakened British identity, society
Speaker 1: and commerce. And I wanted to include that because they
Speaker 1: so perfectly kind of encapsulated in that one paragraph a
Speaker 1: lot of the way that his his art worked in
Speaker 1: terms of how it would take people down with these
Speaker 1: little subtle clues about uh and not so subtle clues
Speaker 1: about what was going on in the picture and the
Speaker 1: people involved. So the story of marriage ala mode is
Speaker 1: that of an arranged marriage which leads to a life
Speaker 1: of idle distance between the couple involved and extramarital indulgences,
Speaker 1: both in terms of affairs and just debaucherous behavior otherwise,
Speaker 1: including drug use. So for Hogarth, who married for love
Speaker 1: and really seemed to have had a happy match with
Speaker 1: Jane Thornhill, marriage is arranged for financial benefits seemed to
Speaker 1: both loose of Chris and doomed. The late seventeen forties
Speaker 1: and early seventeen fifties saw a shift and Hogart's worth
Speaker 1: back to prince, but they were more basic images intended
Speaker 1: for mass market sales. He didn't start with paintings for
Speaker 1: those prints, but from drawings one of these series, titled
Speaker 1: The Four Stages of Cruelty, is a commentary on how
Speaker 1: unkind children can easily become violent adults. It depicts animal
Speaker 1: abuse in the first plate, and then the main character,
Speaker 1: Tom Nero, becomes progressively more a monster, culminating in m A.
Speaker 1: Cobb final scene in which the hanged Tom is being
Speaker 1: dissected for an anatomy lesson in the surgery. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was one, I will confess. Uh, there are are debaucherous
Speaker 1: and sometimes unpleasant images in all of his work. That
Speaker 1: series really I found quite troubling. The animal abuse is
Speaker 1: really graphic, and then the things that sort of happened
Speaker 1: as this character becomes more and more of a lost
Speaker 1: person and a violent person are really a little effect
Speaker 1: surprisingly affecting to me for plates um, So if you
Speaker 1: go looking, just know that that's the case. At the
Speaker 1: same time that he was working on these simple morality prints,
Speaker 1: Hogarth was also painting, but he had reached this point
Speaker 1: where he was starting to struggle to finish any of
Speaker 1: his canvases. He actually staged two auctions of his work
Speaker 1: between seventeen forty five and seventeen fifty one, but these
Speaker 1: led to both frustration and embarrassment because they did not
Speaker 1: generate enough interest to really bring in much money. In
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty three, William Hogarth published a book titled The
Speaker 1: Analysis of Beauty, in which he laid out his principles
Speaker 1: of beauty and focused on the impart of what he
Speaker 1: called the line of beauty, an s shaped curve that's
Speaker 1: inherently appealing and exciting to the human eye. The book
Speaker 1: met with mixed reviews and was mocked by his detractors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, early in his career he made
Speaker 1: enemies and they stayed that way for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life. In seventeen fifty four, Hogarth produced another satirical series.
Speaker 1: This was known as the Election Series, which is a
Speaker 1: critique of electoral corruptions as told through a narrative detailing
Speaker 1: a political race in a fictional town called Guzzledown. And
Speaker 1: this series, which once again began his oil paintings and
Speaker 1: then was made into etchings, so he had had gone
Speaker 1: back to that after he had started doing the quicker drawings.
Speaker 1: Into etchings version skewered both the Tories and the Whigs
Speaker 1: for bribery and corrupt practices, and the first painting in
Speaker 1: the series actually went on display several days before the
Speaker 1: general election that year, at a time when election corruption
Speaker 1: was being discussed in every paper in London. And seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty seven Hogarth became Sergeant painter to King George the Third.
Speaker 1: But despite this prestigious and well paying position, his later
Speaker 1: years were really marked with disappointment. In seventeen fifty nine
Speaker 1: he painted Sigismunda Morning over the Heart of Guiscardo, which
Speaker 1: features the titles heroin holding a goblet containing the heart
Speaker 1: of her husband murdered by her father. The criticism of
Speaker 1: the work was severe and Hogarth did not paint much
Speaker 1: after that. Yeah, there are some write ups of that
Speaker 1: piece saying that he was trying to prove that English
Speaker 1: painters could produce work exactly as good as the Italian masters,
Speaker 1: and that the the reception was more of like a
Speaker 1: m hmmm, I don't think so. Uh. It did not
Speaker 1: go well. And he did make one other political statement
Speaker 1: with his anti war print series titled The Times, which
Speaker 1: he did after that, which made it rather unpopular statement
Speaker 1: in coming out against the Seven Years War. And at
Speaker 1: the time that that series was published, the war had
Speaker 1: not yet ended, so it was like in year six
Speaker 1: and did not have the name the Seven Years War.
Speaker 1: Yet people were outraged by this particular work, and politicians
Speaker 1: who supported the war vogally and publicly criticized Hogarth, and
Speaker 1: it only served to dampen his interest in his work.
Speaker 1: Hogarth's last artistic endeavor was an etching titled The Bathos
Speaker 1: or Manner of Sinking, which was published in March of
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty four. It's often described as having an air
Speaker 1: of doom in it. In it, time is depicted as
Speaker 1: a winged figure, broken and lying prone amid an assortment
Speaker 1: of debris, a puff of air escaping his lips, with
Speaker 1: the word Fini printed on it. The image was intended
Speaker 1: to be the tailpiece for bound collections of his work,
Speaker 1: and when considered in that context, it's a little bit
Speaker 1: less ominous. Yeah, it definitely looks like a death and
Speaker 1: destruction kind of image, but when you consider that it
Speaker 1: would be the end paper of a book where they're
Speaker 1: saying the book has ended, it seems a little less upset.
Speaker 1: But people will sometimes hint that it it was maybe
Speaker 1: important of his upcoming death. Uh So, a few months
Speaker 1: after the Bathos was created, in the summer of seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty four, William Hogarth had a seizure and he remained
Speaker 1: quite ill from that point until his death on October
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty four. And he was sixty seven at that
Speaker 1: point point and had been working as an engraver and
Speaker 1: artist for more than four decades. Today, not only can
Speaker 1: you find Hogarth's works and museums around the world, but
Speaker 1: you can also visit the house he lived in from
Speaker 1: seventeen forty nine until his Death's now a museum, and
Speaker 1: we will link to information about it in the show notes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: William Hogarth, He's fascinating creature. He's one of those artists.
Speaker 1: Like usually I will wax rapsodic about artists and kind
Speaker 1: of fall in love with them. And I was telling
Speaker 1: Tracy before this, I don't know how I feel about him,
Speaker 1: Like if I think he would be a delightful fun
Speaker 1: person or if he might be a crabby stick in
Speaker 1: the mud. I'm not sure. But some of his work
Speaker 1: is really lovely yea. So most art historians and critics
Speaker 1: will say, like if you look at his his satire pieces,
Speaker 1: because of their composition and what he included in, how
Speaker 1: um sort of rich unless they were those are are
Speaker 1: warranted as the things that make him famous. But if
Speaker 1: you just compare like his straight paintings to other painters
Speaker 1: at the time, he's line like not not particularly a
Speaker 1: big standout, and you wouldn't be like, wow, he was
Speaker 1: really amazing. Yeah, I saw some really interesting things that
Speaker 1: were about him trying to make it acceptable for anything
Speaker 1: to be the subject of art instead of just appropriate
Speaker 1: things being the subject of art. Yeah, that a lot
Speaker 1: of that came from that sort of bucking against the
Speaker 1: the established art society in the early seventeen hundreds, that
Speaker 1: he thought like, that's foolish. Nobody should control what should
Speaker 1: be art and what shouldn't be art and what's valid
Speaker 1: art and what is it? Which I completely get behind. Uh,
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's he's an interesting chapel. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is
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