I remarked "Oh I forgot that it was named after Hogarth"
Tricia "who?"
Me spluttering "what do you mean who? How can you not have heard of Hogarth".
So who was William Hogarth? Well he lived November 10, 1697 – October 26, 1764 and was a painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist.
I believe his most famous works were the series of moralizing cartoons. The first of these was A Harlot's Progress (the story of a country girls life of prostitution) which first appeared as a series of 6 paintings (now alas lost) but published as a series of Engravings.
This was followed by a Rake's Progress (about the son of a rich merchant who ends his life at Bedlam) and Marriage A'la Mode (the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money).
One of his later works Gin Lane is one I remember seeing at school. It's possible Henry Fielding, may have enlisted Hogarth to help with propaganda for a Gin Act. Gin Lane (and its companion piece Beer Steet) was issued shortly after Fielding's work An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers, and Related Writings and addressed the same issues.
If you click on one of the links above you'll see the full series with commentry but some individual entries.....
Beer Street and Gin Lane.
7 comments:
When you're driving round the Hogarth Roundabout in Chiswick - you're not thinking of anything but - the traffic!!!
You've educated me as well. I checked out his works...beautiful.
There's also a wonderful series about a corrupt election in Oxfordshire (lots of feasting at the candidate's expense, that sort of thing).
And you can see original paintings by Hogarth at the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Field - an amazing place, worth a visit all by itself. Also National Gallery
All the thousands of times I've driven round the Hogarth roundabout, I've never managed to visit Chiswick House ...
Joanna
A little bit of local knowledge re Hogarth!
William Hogarth, one of the great painters of the 18th century, has been commemorated in a fine statue by Jim Mathieson
The local fund-raising committee, operating under the wing of the Chiswick Traders' Association, raised £60,000. The statue is in Chiswick High Road,a short walk from the artist's summer home, which is now a museum in his memory.
The committee added the figure of a dog alongside the statue of the artist. As Hogarth included a pug called Trump alongside him in one of his self-portraits,they felt sure that he would always have been seen around Chiswick with a pug at his heels. His contemporaries saw this as part of Hogarth's sense of humour; an admirer even wrote a pamphlet of conversations with the pug:
"I may appear nothing more then you would call a Pug, yet within this canine form an heavenly emanation dwells, the genius that inspired Hogarth in all his performances".
See my blog for some comments on Hogarth - inspired by your blog Pete!
C
Ocean - You got it in one - "love" is not a word that springs to mind in conjunction with this post!!
she was rather chuffed :D
Beer, happy Produce of our Isle
Can sinewy Strength impart,
And wearied with Fatigue and Toil
Can cheer each manly Heart.
Labour and Art upheld by Thee
Successfully advance,
We quaff Thy balmy Juice with Glee
And Water leave to France.
Genius of Health, thy grateful Taste
Rivals the Cup of Jove,
And warms each English generous Breast
With Liberty and Love!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:William_Hogarth_-_Beer_Street.jpg
Cheers!
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