William Hogarth
William Hogarth was born on the 10th of November 1697 at Bartholomew Close in London. His father Richard Hogarth taught Latin and wrote textbooks for a living. The family lived in lower-middle-class circumstances that would shape his entire worldview. Young William took an apprenticeship with an engraver named Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields. He learned to engrave trade cards and similar products during those early years.
His father faced periods of mixed fortune before being imprisoned for debt. Richard Hogarth spent five years in the Fleet Prison after opening an unsuccessful coffee house at St John's Gate. This event informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge that never fully disappeared from his work. The young artist never spoke publicly about his father's imprisonment yet it clearly shaped his perspective on society.
In 1720 Hogarth enrolled at the original St Martin's Lane Academy in Peter Court, London. Louis Chéron and John Vanderbank ran this institution alongside other future leading figures like Joseph Highmore and William Kent. The academy stopped operating around 1724 when Vanderbank fled to France to avoid creditors. Hogarth recalled how the treasurer sank the subscription money and seized the lamp stove for rent. He then joined another drawing school in Covent Garden run by Sir James Thornhill shortly after November 1724.
Hogarth completed the earliest series of moral works in 1731 called A Harlot's Progress. The collection contained six scenes that appeared first as paintings before becoming engravings. These paintings are now lost but the story remains clear through the surviving prints. A country girl begins prostituting herself in the first scene while meeting with a bawd. The final scene shows a funeral ceremony following her death from venereal disease.
The inaugural series became an immediate success and was followed between 1733 and 1735 by A Rake's Progress. This second instalment consisted of eight pictures depicting Tom Rakewell spending all his money on luxurious living. The character ends up in Bethlem Royal Hospital after gambling away his inheritance. The original paintings of A Harlot's Progress were destroyed in the fire at Fonthill House in 1755.
Oil paintings of A Rake's Progress from 1733-34 remain displayed today in the gallery room at Sir John Soane's Museum in London. Charles Lamb later deemed Hogarth's images to be books filled with teeming fruitful suggestive meaning. Other pictures we look at he wrote but his pictures we read.
Pirated reproductions by unscrupulous printsellers emerged when A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress achieved success. Hogarth lobbied parliament for greater legal control over reproduction of his work and other artists' work. The result became the Engravers' Copyright Act known as Hogarth's Act which became law on the 25th of June 1735. This legislation represented the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognize authorial rights of an individual artist.
Earlier in his career Hogarth had sued Joshua Morris a tapestry worker who hired him to prepare a design for the Element of Earth. Morris heard that Hogarth was an engraver and no painter so he declined the work when completed. The case was decided in Hogarth's favour on the 28th of May 1728 in Westminster Court. He received payment for the money owed after winning this lawsuit against the tapestry worker.
Hogarth published his ideas about artistic design in The Analysis of Beauty during 1753. In it he professed to define principles of beauty and grace realized through serpentine lines called the Line of Beauty. Some adherents praised the book as fine deliverance upon aesthetics while enemies made its obscurities subject to endless ridicule. Paul Sandby produced several caricatures against Hogarth's treatise shortly after publication.
He also wrote a manuscript called Apology for Painters alongside unpublished autobiographical notes. His theoretical arguments regarding the Line of Beauty influenced how artists approached composition and movement. The book became controversial among rivals like Sir Joshua Reynolds who questioned Hogarth's notion of imitation of nature. Reynolds rejected minute attention to visible world in favor of grand style painting despite granting Hogarth extraordinary talents.
Hogarth created his Election series between 1755 and 1758 which now resides in Sir John Soane's Museum. These prints ridiculed English passion for cockfighting in The Cockpit from 1759 before attacking Methodism in Credulity Superstition and Fanaticism during 1762. He followed this with political anti-war satire titled The Times plate I in 1762.
Earlier works included The Four Stages of Cruelty published on the 21st of February 1751 depicting cruel treatment of animals. The first print shows boys torturing dogs cats and other creatures while being pleaded with to stop by another well-dressed boy. Tom Nero grows up to become a Hackney coach driver whose horse breaks its leg under heavy load. The fourth print titled The Reward of Cruelty shows Tom's corpse publicly dissected after execution by hanging reflecting the Murder Act 1751.
On the 25th of October 1764 Hogarth was conveyed from his villa in Chiswick to his home in Leicester Fields. He had been in weak condition but remained cheerful while working on retouches for The Bench that same day. Before going to bed he boasted about eating a pound of beefsteaks for dinner looking more robust than usual. When he went to bed he suddenly began vomiting causing him to ring his bell so forcefully it broke.
Hogarth died around two hours later in arms of servant Mrs Mary Lewis who received £100 in his will for faithful services. John Nichols claimed he died of an aneurysm taking place in chest while Horace Walpole said dropsy of breast caused death. He was buried at St Nicholas Church in Chiswick where actor David Garrick composed inscription for tombstone. His friend Benjamin Franklin sent letter on the 26th of October which Hogarth replied to before falling ill.
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Common questions
When and where was William Hogarth born?
William Hogarth was born on the 10th of November 1697 at Bartholomew Close in London. His father Richard Hogarth taught Latin and wrote textbooks for a living while the family lived in lower-middle-class circumstances.
What laws did William Hogarth help create regarding copyright?
William Hogarth lobbied parliament to pass the Engravers' Copyright Act known as Hogarth's Act which became law on the 25th of June 1735. This legislation represented the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognize authorial rights of an individual artist.
Which paintings by William Hogarth are currently displayed in Sir John Soane's Museum?
Oil paintings of A Rake's Progress from 1733-34 remain displayed today in the gallery room at Sir John Soane's Museum in London. The Election series created between 1755 and 1758 also now resides in Sir John Soane's Museum.
How did William Hogarth die and when did his death occur?
Hogarth died around two hours after falling ill on the 25th of October 1764 in arms of servant Mrs Mary Lewis who received £100 in his will for faithful services. He was buried at St Nicholas Church in Chiswick where actor David Garrick composed inscription for tombstone.
What legal case did William Hogarth win against Joshua Morris?
The case involving tapestry worker Joshua Morris was decided in William Hogarth's favour on the 28th of May 1728 in Westminster Court. He received payment for the money owed after winning this lawsuit against the tapestry worker who had declined to hire him as a painter.