William Hogarth was an English painter, engraver, satirist, cartoonist and writer. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", and he is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. Familiarity with his work is so widespread that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".
Paintings by William Hogarth
Marriage A-la-Mode (Hogarth) (1743)
Marriage A-la-Mode is a series of six pictures painted by William Hogarth between 1743 and 1745, intended as a pointed skewering of 18th-century society. They show the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money or social status, and satirize patronage and aesthetics. The pictures are held in the National Gallery in London.
This series was not received as well as his other moral tales, A Harlot's Progress (1732) and A Rake's Progress (1735), and when the paintings were finally sold in 1751, it was for a much lower sum than the artist had hoped for.
The Graham Children (1742)
The Graham Children is an oil painting completed by William Hogarth in 1742. It is a group portrait depicting the four children of Daniel Graham, apothecary to King George II. The youngest child had died by the time the painting was completed.
The painting was in the ownership of Richard Robert Graham, depicted on the far right of the painting, at least until his death in 1816. It then had several owners before it was acquired by Lord Duveen who presented it to the British National Gallery in 1934.
The Shrimp Girl (1743)
The Shrimp Girl is a painting by the English artist William Hogarth. It was painted around 1740–1745, and is held by the National Gallery, London.
The painting, a relatively late work by Hogarth, is one of several in which he experimented with a loose, almost impressionistic style comparable to the work of Fragonard. In its subject matter, it resembles the prints of hawkers and traders popular in Hogarth's day.
Four Times of the Day (1736)
Four Times of the Day is a series of four oil paintings by English artist William Hogarth. They were completed in 1736 and in 1738 were reproduced and published as a series of four engravings. They are humorous depictions of life in the streets of London, the vagaries of fashion, and the interactions between the rich and poor. Unlike many of Hogarth's other series, such as A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress, Industry and Idleness, and The Four Stages of Cruelty, it does not depict the story of an individual, but instead focuses on the society of the city in a satirical manner.
Hogarth does not offer a judgment on the activities occurring in each scene, but rather acts as a detached observer. In each scene, while the upper and middle classes tend to provide the focus, there are fewer moral comparisons than seen in some of his other works. Their dimensions are about 74 cm (29 in) by 61 cm (24 in) each.
Before and After (Hogarth) (1731)
Before and After is a pair of comic paintings by British painter William Hogarth. He made two painted versions in 1730–31. The first version showed an exterior scene in a wooded glade, based on contemporary French pastoral fête galante, while a second version moved the scene indoors. Hogarth made engravings based on the second version in 1736. In each pair, based on the position and appearance of the subjects, the first painting shows the couple before and the second after sexual intercourse.
The first version, painted 1730–31, is at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, bequeathed by the merchant banker Arnold John Hugh Smith in 1964. Each oil on canvas painting measures 37.2 cm × 45.1 cm (14.6 in × 17.8 in)
Painter and his Pug (1745)
The Painter and his Pug is a 1745 self-portrait created by William Hogarth featuring his pug dog, Trump. He began the portrait a decade earlier. The portrait was originally created with the intention of Hogarth wearing formal attire, but was changed to the informal attire sometime during the painting process.
In the portrait, Hogarth himself is in a painting as the pug is alongside him, making Trump "real" as opposed to the created person. The dog is indifferent to the painting, to the books and to the painting palette (which shows Hogarth's Line of Beauty). So the painting seems to be a Vanitas still life. But, as an ironic disruption, the cloth behind the dog comes out of the painting.
Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751)
Beer Street and Gin Lane are two prints issued in 1751 by English artist William Hogarth in support of what would become the Gin Act. Designed to be viewed alongside each other, they depict the evils of the consumption of gin (then a generic term for grain-based distilled spirits) as a contrast to the merits of drinking beer. At almost the same time and on the same subject, Hogarth's friend Henry Fielding published An Inquiry into the Late Increase in Robbers. Issued together with The Four Stages of Cruelty, the prints continued a movement started in Industry and Idleness, away from depicting the laughable foibles of fashionable society (as he had done with Marriage A-la-Mode) and towards a more cutting satire on the problems of poverty and crime.
On the simplest level, Hogarth portrays the inhabitants of Beer Street as happy and healthy, nourished by the native English small beer and ale, and those who live in Gin Lane as destroyed by their addiction to the foreign spirit of gin; but, as with so many of Hogarth's works, closer inspection uncovers other targets of his satire, and reveals that the poverty of Gin Lane and the prosperity of Beer Street are more intimately connected than they at first appear. Gin Lane shows shocking scenes of infanticide, starvation, madness, decay, and suicide, while Beer Street depicts industry, health, bonhomie, and thriving commerce; but there are contrasts and subtle details which some critics believe allude to the prosperity of Beer Street as the cause of the misery found in Gin Lane.
Hogarth's Servants (1752)
Heads of Six of Hogarth's Servants is an oil-on-canvas painting by William Hogarth from c. 1750-5. Measuring 63 centimetres (25 in) high and 75.5 centimetres (29.7 in) wide, it depicts the heads of six of his domestic servants. It is held by in Tate Britain in London.
This is evidently a late work by Hogarth, demonstrating his mastery of portraiture. The subject matter and composition are unusual, with six studies of heads crammed in a small space, distributed in three groups of two, all lit by a light source at the upper left. Space for a seventh head has been marked out roughly in the lower left corner but it was not completed like the other six. The left edge of the canvas was later cut to frame the six completed heads better, cutting off part of the absent seventh head.
Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn (1738)
Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn is a painting from 1738 by British artist William Hogarth. It was reproduced as an engraving and issued with Four Times of the Day as a five print set in the same year.
The painting depicts a company of actresses preparing for their final performance before the troupe is disbanded as a result of the Licensing Act 1737. Brought in as a result of John Gay's Beggar's Opera of 1728, which had linked Robert Walpole with the notorious criminal Jonathan Wild, the Licensing Act made it compulsory for new plays to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain, and, more importantly for the characters depicted, closed any non-patent theatres. The majority of the painting was completed before the Act was passed in 1737, but its passing into law was no surprise and it was the work of a moment for Hogarth to insert a reference to the Act itself into the picture.
The Distrest Poet (1736)
The Distrest Poet is an oil painting produced sometime around 1736 by the British artist William Hogarth. Reproduced as an etching and engraving, it was published in 1741 from a third state plate produced in 1740. The scene was probably inspired by Alexander Pope's satirical poem The Dunciad. It depicts a scene in a small, dingy attic room where a poet sits at his desk in the dormer and, scratching his head, stares at the papers on the desk before him, evidently looking for inspiration to complete the poem he is writing. Near him sits his wife darning clothes, surprised by the entrance of a milkmaid, who impatiently demands payment of debts.
The engraving of The Distrest Poet in its third state was issued on 15 December 1741 as a companion piece to The Enraged Musician, a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the noise from the street outside his practice room. The initial plate for The Distrest Poet was produced soon after Hogarth had completed the oil painting, but the third state plate was not completed until late in 1740 at which time Hogarth advertised his intention to issue a three-image set: The Provok'd Musician, The Distrest Poet, and a third image on the subject of "Painting". The Provok'd Musician (renamed The Enraged Musician) was produced in 1741 but the third image was never completed.
The Lady's Last Stake (1759)
The Lady's Last Stake, originally entitled Piquet: or Virtue in Danger, is a painting by William Hogarth, c. 1759. The work is a conversation piece, capturing the moment when the woman has to make a fateful decision: to be ruined financially, or morally. It was one of Hogarth's last works, commissioned by James Caulfeild, 4th Viscount Charlemont (later 1st Earl of Charlemont), who allowed Hogarth to select the subject and price.
The painting depicts a domestic scene with a man and a woman who have been gambling, playing piquet at a table near an open fire and in front of a Venetian window in a well-appointed Palladian mansion. The woman has just lost her fortune to the man, an army officer. He offers to play one more game of cards: either way, he will return her assets, including the money and jewels in his tricorne hat; but if she loses, she must accept him as her lover. The woman clasps the edge of the fire screen as she considers his offer. The woman may be modelled on Hogarth's acquaintance Hester Salusbury (later Hester Thrale and then Hester Piozzi). On the floor is a discarded letter from her husband sending her money; it is addressed to Charlotte and signed Townly.
Marriage A-la-Mode: 2. The Tête à Tête (1743)
The Tête à Tête is the second canvas in the series of six satirical paintings known as Marriage A-la-Mode, painted by William Hogarth.
The exact details are not always settled upon (in particular, the time of the day is one of the most disputed questions in the entire series), but the primary implication is clear: The two are totally uninterested in each other, and the marriage and the household are rapidly becoming untenable.