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WILLIAM HOGARTH

William Hogarth was an English artist. He was born in 1697 at London and died in 1764. He was apprenticed to a silversmith, who employed him in engraving ciphers and crests on spoons and pieces of plate. In 1720 he commenced business for himself, painting portraits, and making designs and book-plates for the booksellers, etc. Among these was a series of illustrations to Hudibras.

Besides portraits, he also painted miscellaneous subjects in oil. In 1729 he married the daughter of Sir James Thornhill, the painter, against her father's wishes, who is said, however, to have been mollified when William Hogarth produced his celebrated series of pictures called the Harlot's Progress, a work which brought his great powers fairly before the public. The engravings of these, which became exceedingly popular, were published in 1734. This was followed by the Rake's Progress and Marriage a la Mode, two similar series of paintings and engravings; Industry and Idleness, Beer Street and Gin Lane, The Election, The Enraged Musician, The Country-Inn Yard, The March to Finchley, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn, Four Stages of Cruelty, and a host of other engravings, which all evinced his extraordinary powers of satire, wit, and imagination.

Several portraits, notably those of himself, Garrick, Lovat, and Wilkes, are master-pieces in their way. He was also ambitious of shining as an historical painter, but in this line he was not so successful. In 1753 his work on the Analysis of Beauty appeared, a treatise which brought him little fame, and which was severely ridiculed by his enemies and professional rivals. In originality of imagination and invention, and for vigour of realism and dramatic power, William Hogarth stands in the highest rank, and his genius was always enlisted on the side of virtue and morality. Though best known as an engraver, he possessed high qualities as a painter.
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