This fresh and engaging perspective of William Hogarth (1697-1764) reveals him as a figure who reinvented the very idea of what it is to be an artist.
Hogarth was the first artist to make his living as a humorist, brilliantly inventing a means of reproducing a wit for wide public consumption. He adapted literary satire as a graphic art form and invented the serial print. In his portraits, his representation of human character and its passions broke new ground, as did his depiction of disease and its effects on the body. His sympathy with the human predicament and natural tendency for philanthropy also surfaced in his art.
Taking a thematic approach to this quintessentially British artist, Matthew Craske introduces the reader to Hogarth's varied artistic production, including his series, engravings, portraits, and such major paintings as A Rake's Progress. He brings to life an artist who produced works aimed at fostering self-improvement--works in which vice can ruin the aristocrat as swiftly as the harlot--but also works of great humor. We meet an artist emblematic of his day and time but also utterly innovative and long-sighted.
Customer Reviews
Review Summary: Excellent and Fascinating
Date: 2005-09-07
Details: This is a concise and extremely well written summary of Hogarth and his times, containing many insights into 18th century cultural history. This was a time in which social critics and "self-help" authors were beginning to take over some of the authority formerly held by the church on moral issues, and Hogarth was in the vanguard of those attempting to illustrate how personal liberty if unchecked by good behavior could descend into licentiousness and ruin. Among other interesting topics covered are Hogarth's feelings about the British class system (having risen from modest origins through an apprenticeship as a silver engraver to fame and fortune as an artist and printmaker), his sympathy for the lower classes, and his antipathy to the artistic establishment which overvalued trite and derivative Continental art on religious and mythological themes.
Review Summary: Excellent!
Date: 2001-12-05
Details: This is a fascinating, well-written and well-researched look at William Hogarth's art, life and ideas. It is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, and includes nice reproductions of a sampling of Hogarth's work (although the sizes of some of the images are small). The author includes a very refreshing common sense in his interpretations of Hogarth's motives, with a good, clear understanding of the 18th-Century British context in which Hogarth lived and worked.
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