Hogarth: The Failed Artist Finds Sucess

 

Early Eighteenth Century Art: Post # 8

I decided to do my research on William Hogarth the prolific British satirist and the first of his narrative cycles, The Harlot’s Progress, particularly the first scenes.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) started his career as an artist trying to work his way into portraiture of the English aristocracy.  He failed at this and never gained their favor though some of his portrait work still exists and he shows no lack of skills and talents.  He did some historical works and designed silverware patterns with a high class market in mind.   It seems even early on his associations with printmakers and artists of a satirical bent hurt his chances.  He tended to show up at the wrong places and say the wrong things and he was too obviously trying to promote himself in ways which came across as exploitive and probably were.   He illustrated John Gay’s A Beggar’s Opera in about 1728 which satirized all classes, particularly the aristocrats and began his own moralistic narrative cycle The Harlot’s Progress in about 1731.  This series was still aimed at a higher class patron as it doesn’t overtly ridicule the aristocracy; Hogarth still had hope of gaining a patron of this class at this point.

Hogarth may have fallen into visual narratives by accident; The Harlot’s Progress is said to have started with Scene III, The Arrest of the Harlot by Sir Johnson.  This scene originally depicted a woman getting out of her bed at about noon, as shown by her pocket watch, while her maid poured the tea.  This composition was a stand-alone piece which moralized about temperance and the lack thereof.  A woman pouring liquid from one vessel to another has been a temperance symbol since ancient times and the late riser, symbolizing luxury, is its opposite.  The gentlemen coming in through the door were a later modification to the piece to pair it with part II.  It was suggested that Hogarth make a companion piece for scene III, so he did and that piece became Scene II, The Harlot Deceiving her Jewish Protector.   In this scene the Harlot is having her maid sneak her young lover out past her protector.  In the background of this scene are lavish furnishings and painted masterworks as opposed to Scene III where the background is more tawdry.  The Harlot has fallen in the world.  Scene II and Scene III are now a pair of before/after vignettes of vice and its consequences.  Scene I shows the arrival of the Harlot as an innocent country girl coming to the city.  The other three scenes present the Harlot's redemption, death and funeral.

Since these engravings showed every indication of becoming popular Hogarth hit upon the money-making idea of selling subscriptions to this series of prints and made the prints himself because he couldn’t find a printer willing to take on the project because they would have to deal with him.   This ended up to be in his favor since he didn’t have to share the profits.   The narrative format works something like a soap opera or a play, the subscriber gets to follow the story as new episodes or acts come out and to find out how it will end they have to buy the whole series.  The Harlot’s Progress has six parts in its final form and was very popular.  Hogarth produced The Rake’s Progress series as a Male counterpart of the Harlot a few years later (1735), the series Marriage a la Mode in 1743-1745 and other moralist series as well.  Besides making prints of his moral narratives he also usually did one or more painted versions  to sell to wealthier customers.  Note I call them customers and not patrons, he became so popular with the middle class that he found that he didn’t need  patronage from the aristocracy.  Of course, he still painted the occasional portrait until about 1745 but since his prints and associated paintings sold well he didn’t need any particular patron.  Like Dürer in the sixteenth century he had effectively found a was to put himself outside the regular system of Artistic hierarchy by finding his own niche.  Of  course, he likely enjoyed satirizing those who had rejected him in the past.

Works Cited

Godby, Michael. “The First Steps of Hogarth’s Harlot’s Progress.” Art History 10 (1987): 23-37.

Stokstad M and Cothrin M.  Art History: Eighteenth toTwenty-First Century Art (Portable Edition).  Boston:  Prentice Hall, 2011: 920-921.

  If you have an appetite for antique satire many of Hogarth’s works and the Harlot series can be seen on ArtStor at: (http://library.artstor.org.ezp.lib.cwu.edu/library#3│search│6│All20collections3A20Hogarth)