William Hogarth
Matthew Craske

Paper | 2000 | This edition is out of print | ISBN13: 978-0-691-07067-4
80 pp. | 6 3/4 x 9 3/4 | 60 color plates

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.

Table of Contents:

Introduction 6
Chapter 1: The Freedom of the Times 11
Chapter 2: The Ideals and Realities of Self-Improvement 14
Chapter 3: 'Britophil' 25
Chapter 4: Liberty and Libertinism 41
Chapter 5: Hogarth's Sympathy for, and Affinity with, the 'Nobodies' of Society 58
Notes 75
Select Bibliography 78
Credits 79
Index 79

Series:

• British Artists

Subject Area:

• Art and Architecture

Published in association with the Tate, London

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 11/5/2009

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