WILLIAM HOGARTH

William Hogarth's father was a schoolteacher and would be Latin lexicographer. Hogarth senior's ventures included running a coffeehouse in St John's Gate in Clerkenwell in which only Latin was allowed to be spoken. The business failed, landing him in debt and thus in the Fleet Prison. As a result of the family's modest means, Hogarth fils was apprenticed to an undistinguished silversmith. He served his term and then established himself as a copper-engraver in Cranbourn Street. His original core business consisted of engraving everyday ephemera. However, he had artistic ambitions and enrolled in the St Martin's Lane Academy. During the early 1720s he started to develop a public reputation through his production of satires of contemporary subjects.

Hogarth developed a successful career as a painter. In 1732 he published by subscription A Harlot's Progress. This was a narrative social satire that consisted of six paintings. In these, a country girl arrives in London, is induced to work as a prostitute, and dies; the series ends with her grave. Nearly all of the scenes could be located to a particular place in London. The works gained a mass audience through engravings that were made of them. Their popularity was such that there were widely pirated, imitated, and used as the basis for Harlot-branded products. In 1733 Hogarth moved his business and home into a house on Leicester Fields. From there he published The Rake's Progress¹ (1735), a similar narrative told through eight paintings. The former silversmith s apprentice became a national figure. Marriage a-la-mode² (1743-5) also consisted of eight paintings. They charted a loveless marriage from the betrothal of a wealthy City merchant's daughter to a feckless aristocrat, through the alienated marriage, his death, and finally hers.

Industry and Idleness (1747) was composed of twelve engravings that were made from drawings. In them, the stories of two apprentices - Francis Goodchild and Tom Idle - are contrasted. The former becomes Lord Mayor of London, while the latter hangs at Tyburn. In this series, Hogarth was seeking to communicate with an audience beyond the usual middle-class purchasers of prints. Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751) were part of a broader campaign, that included the likes of Henry Fielding, that sought to address the social consequences of cheap gin. The image of the dissolute Gin Lane is practically part of the national psyche. The much less known Beer Street promotes an image of beer drinkers being prosperous and happy in contrast to their spirits guzzling brethren. The Humours of The Election (1753-4)³ was a set of four paintings that satirised the manner in which a minority of M.P.s were able to effectively buy their seats in the House of Commons.

Location: 30 Leicester Square, WC2H 7JZ

Hogarth House, Hogarth Lane, Great West Road, W4 2QN

Website: https://hogarthshouse.org http://collections.soane.org/object-p40

¹. The original paintings of The Rake's Progress are in Sir John Soane's Museum.

². The original paintings of Marriage a-la-mode are in The National Gallery.

³. The original paintings of The Humours of An Election are in Sir John Soane's Museum.

David Backhouse 2024