By April 1720, Hogarth was an
engraver in his own right, at first engraving coats of arms and shop bills and designing plates for booksellers. In 1727, he was hired by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the
Element of Earth. Morris heard that he was "an engraver, and no painter", and consequently declined the work when completed. Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court, where the case was decided in his favour on 28 May 1728.
Early works '', 1721 ''.
Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney and family in foreground Early satirical works included an
Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme (, published 1724), about the disastrous stock market crash of 1720, known as the
South Sea Bubble, in which many English people lost a great deal of money. In the bottom left corner, he shows
Protestant,
Roman Catholic, and
Jewish figures gambling, while in the middle there is a huge machine, like a merry-go-round, which people are boarding. At the top is a goat, written below which is "Who'l Ride". The people are scattered around the picture with a
sense of disorder, while the progress of the well dressed people towards the ride in the middle shows the foolishness of the crowd in buying stock in the South Sea Company, which spent more time issuing stock than anything else. Other early works include
The Lottery (1724);
The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by the Gormagons (1724);
A Just View of the British Stage (1724); some book illustrations; and the small print
Masquerades and Operas (1724). The latter is a satire on contemporary follies, such as the
masquerades of the Swiss impresario
John James Heidegger, the popular Italian
opera singers,
John Rich's pantomimes at
Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the exaggerated popularity of
Lord Burlington's protégé, the architect and painter
William Kent. He continued that theme in 1727, with the
Large Masquerade Ticket. . Triumphant, one of the twelve engravings illustrating the adventures of Hudibras, a bumbling adventurer from
Samuel Butler's mock-heroic poem. In 1726, Hogarth prepared twelve large engravings illustrating
Samuel Butler's
Hudibras. These he himself valued highly, and they are among his best early works, though they are based on small book illustrations. In the following years, he turned his attention to the production of small "
conversation pieces" (i.e., groups in oil of full-length portraits from high). Among his efforts in oil between 1728 and 1732 were
The Fountaine Family (),
The Assembly at Wanstead House,
The House of Commons examining Bambridge, and several pictures of the chief actors in
John Gay's popular ''
The Beggar's Opera''. One of his real-life subjects was
Sarah Malcolm, whom he sketched two days before her execution. One of Hogarth's masterpieces of this period is the depiction of an amateur performance by children of
John Dryden's
The Indian Emperour or The Conquest of Mexico by Spaniards, being the Sequel of The Indian Queen (1732–1735) at the home of
John Conduitt, master of the mint, in St George's Street,
Hanover Square. Hogarth's other works in the 1730s include
A Midnight Modern Conversation (1733),
Southwark Fair (1733),
The Sleeping Congregation (1736),
Before and After (1736),
Scholars at a Lecture (1736),
The Company of Undertakers (1736),
The Distrest Poet (1736),
The Four Times of the Day (1738), and
Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn (1738). He may also have printed
Burlington Gate (1731), evoked by
Alexander Pope's Epistle to
Lord Burlington, and defending
James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, who is therein satirized. This print gave great offence, and was suppressed. However, modern authorities such as
Ronald Paulson no longer attribute it to Hogarth.
Moralizing art ''Harlot's Progress and Rake's Progress'' '', Plate 8, 1735, and retouched by Hogarth in 1763 by adding the Britannia emblem In 1731, Hogarth completed the earliest of his series of moral works, a body of work that led to wide recognition. The collection of six scenes was entitled ''
A Harlot's Progress and appeared first as paintings (now lost) before being published as engravings. A Harlot's Progress'' depicts the fate of a country girl who begins prostituting – the six scenes are chronological, starting with a meeting with a
bawd and ending with a funeral ceremony that follows the character's death from
venereal disease. The inaugural series was an immediate success and was followed in 1733–1735 by the sequel ''
A Rake's Progress''. The second instalment consisted of eight pictures that depicted the reckless life of Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who spends all of his money on luxurious living, services from prostitutes, and gambling – the character's life ultimately ends in
Bethlem Royal Hospital. The original paintings of ''A Harlot's Progress
were destroyed in the fire at Fonthill House in 1755; the oil paintings of A Rake's Progress'' (1733–34) are displayed in the gallery room at
Sir John Soane's Museum, London, UK. When the success of ''A Harlot's Progress
and A Rake's Progress'' resulted in numerous pirated reproductions by unscrupulous printsellers, Hogarth lobbied in
parliament for greater legal control over the reproduction of his and other artists' work. The result was the
Engravers' Copyright Act (known as 'Hogarth's Act'), which became law on 25 June 1735 and was the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognise the authorial rights of an individual artist.
Marriage A-la-Mode '' (scene four of six) In 1743–1745, Hogarth painted the six pictures of
Marriage A-la-Mode (
National Gallery, London), a pointed skewering of upper-class 18th-century society. An engraved version of the same series, produced by French engravers, appeared in 1745. This moralistic warning shows the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money. This is regarded by many as his finest project and may be among his best-planned story serials. Marital ethics were the topic of much debate in 18th-century Britain. The many marriages of convenience and their attendant unhappiness came in for particular criticism, with a variety of authors taking the view that love was a much sounder basis for marriage. Hogarth here painted a satire – a genre that by definition has a moral point to convey – of a conventional marriage within the English upper class. All the paintings were engraved and the series achieved wide circulation in print form. The series, which is set in a Classical interior, shows the story of the fashionable marriage of Viscount Squanderfield, the son of bankrupt Earl Squander, to the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant, starting with the signing of a marriage contract at the Earl's grand house and ending with the murder of the son by his wife's lover and the suicide of the daughter after her lover is hanged at
Tyburn for murdering her husband.
William Makepeace Thackeray wrote:
Industry and Idleness In the twelve prints of
Industry and Idleness (1747), Hogarth shows the progression in the lives of two
apprentices, one of whom is dedicated and hard working, while the other, who is idle, commits crime and is eventually executed. This shows the work ethic of
Protestant England, where those who worked hard were rewarded, such as the industrious apprentice who becomes
Sheriff (plate 8),
Alderman (plate 10), and finally the
Lord Mayor of London in the last plate in the series. The idle apprentice, who begins "at play in the church yard" (plate 3), holes up "in a Garrett with a Common Prostitute" after turning
highwayman (plate 7) and "executed at Tyburn" (plate 11). The idle apprentice is sent to the
gallows by the industrious apprentice himself. For each plate, there is at least one passage from the Bible at the bottom, mostly from the
Book of Proverbs, such as for the first plate: :"Industry and Idleness, shown here, 'Proverbs Ch:10 Ver:4 The hand of the diligent maketh rich.'" Hogarth engraved
Beer Street to show a happy city drinking the 'good' beverage,
English beer, in contrast to
Gin Lane, in which the effects of drinking gin are shown – as a more potent liquor, gin caused more problems for society. There had been a sharp increase in the popularity of gin at this time, which was called the '
Gin Craze.' It started in the early 18th century, after a series of legislative actions in the late 17th century impacted the importation and manufacturing of alcohol in London. Among these, were the
Prohibition of 1678, which barred popular French brandy imports, and the forced disbandment, in 1690, of the
London Guild of Distillers, whose members had previously been the only legal manufacturers of alcohol, leading to an increase in the production and then consumption of domestic gin. In
Beer Street, people are shown as healthy, happy and prosperous, while in
Gin Lane, they are scrawny, lazy and careless. The woman at the front of
Gin Lane, who lets her baby fall to its death, echoes the tale of
Judith Dufour, who strangled her baby so she could sell its clothes for gin money. The prints were published in support of the
Gin Act 1751. Hogarth's friend, the magistrate
Henry Fielding, may have enlisted Hogarth to help with propaganda for the Gin Act;
Beer Street and
Gin Lane were issued shortly after his work
An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers, and Related Writings, and addressed the same issues.
The Four Stages of Cruelty Other prints were his outcry against inhumanity in
The Four Stages of Cruelty (published 21 February 1751), in which Hogarth depicts the cruel treatment of animals which he saw around him and suggests what will happen to people who carry on in this manner. In the first print, there are scenes of boys torturing dogs, cats and other animals. It centers around a poorly dressed boy committing a violent act of torture upon a dog, while being pleaded with to stop, and offered food, by another well-dressed boy. A boy behind them has graffitied a
hanged stickman figure upon a wall, with the name "Tom Nero" underneath, and is pointing to this dog torturer. for which he was paid £200, "which was more", he wrote, "than any English artist ever received for a single portrait." With this picture Hogarth established the genre of theatrical portraiture as a distinctively British kind of history painting. In 1746, a sketch of
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, afterwards beheaded on Tower Hill, had an exceptional success when turned into an etching. In 1740, he created a truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic
Captain Coram, for the
Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now in the
Foundling Museum. This portrait, and his unfinished oil sketch of a young fishwoman, entitled
The Shrimp Girl (
National Gallery, London), may be called masterpieces of
British painting. There are also portraits of his wife, his two sisters, and of many other people; among them Bishop
Benjamin Hoadly and Bishop
Thomas Herring. The engraved portrait of
John Wilkes was a bestseller.
Historical subjects For a long period, during the mid-18th century, Hogarth tried to achieve the status of a
history painter, but did not earn much respect in this field. The painter, and later founder of the
Royal Academy of Arts,
Joshua Reynolds, was highly critical of Hogarth's style and work. According to art historian
David Bindman, in
Dr Johnson's serial of essays for London's
Universal Chronicle,
The Idler, the three essays written by Reynolds for the months of September to November 1759 are directed at Hogarth. Whereas the
Idler essay no. 76, which attacks a connoisseur's "servile attention to minute exactness", seems to be more likely a response to the Hogarth supporter, Benjamin Ralph and his book,
The School of Raphael (published in May 1759), in the
Idler essay no. 79, Reynolds questions Hogarth's notion of the imitation of nature as "the obvious sense, that objects are represented naturally when they have such relief that they seem real." Reynolds rejected "this kind of imitation", favouring the "grand style of painting" which avoids "minute attention" to the visible world. Writer, art historian and politician,
Horace Walpole, was also critical of Hogarth as a history painter, but did find value in his satirical prints.
Biblical scenes Hogarth's history pictures include
The Pool of Bethesda and
The Good Samaritan, executed in 1736–1737 for
St Bartholomew's Hospital; ''Moses brought before Pharaoh's Daughter
, painted for the Foundling Hospital (1747, formerly at the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now in the Foundling Museum); Paul before Felix'' (1748) at
Lincoln's Inn; and his altarpiece for
St. Mary Redcliffe,
Bristol (1755–56).
The Gate of Calais The Gate of Calais (1748; now in
Tate Britain) was produced soon after his return from a visit to France.
Horace Walpole wrote that Hogarth had run a great risk to go there since the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Back home, he immediately executed a painting of the subject in which he unkindly represented his enemies, the Frenchmen, as cringing, emaciated and superstitious people, while an enormous sirloin of beef arrives, destined for the English inn as a symbol of British prosperity and superiority. He claimed to have painted himself into the picture in the left corner sketching the gate, with a "soldier's hand upon my shoulder", running him in.
Other later works and his wife
Eva Marie Veigel, c. 1757–1764,
Royal Collection at
Windsor Castle Notable Hogarth engravings in the 1740s include
The Enraged Musician (1741), the six prints of
Marriage à-la-mode (1745; executed by French artists under Hogarth's inspection), and
The Stage Coach or The Country Inn Yard (1747). In 1745, Hogarth painted a self-portrait with his pug dog,
Trump (now also in
Tate Britain), which shows him as a learned artist supported by volumes of
Shakespeare,
Milton and
Swift. In 1749, he represented the somewhat disorderly English troops on their
March of the Guards to Finchley (formerly located in
Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now
Foundling Museum). Others works included his ingenious
Satire on False Perspective (1754); his satire on canvassing in his
Election series (1755–1758; now in
Sir John Soane's Museum); his ridicule of the English passion for
cockfighting in
The Cockpit (1759); his attack on
Methodism in
Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism (1762); his political anti-war satire in
The Times, plate I (1762); and his pessimistic view of all things in
Tailpiece, or The Bathos (1764). In 1757, Hogarth was appointed
Serjeant Painter to the King.
Writing '' plate 1 (1753) Hogarth wrote and published his ideas of artistic design in his book
The Analysis of Beauty (1753). In it, he professes to define the principles of beauty and grace which he, a real child of
Rococo, saw realized in serpentine lines (the
Line of Beauty). By some of Hogarth's adherents, the book was praised as a fine deliverance upon aesthetics; by his enemies and rivals, its obscurities and minor errors were made the subject of endless ridicule and caricature. For instance,
Paul Sandby produced several caricatures against Hogarth's treatise. Hogarth wrote also a manuscript called
Apology for Painters () and unpublished "autobiographical notes".
Painter and engraver of modern moral subjects Hogarth lived in an age when artwork became increasingly commercialized, being viewed in shop windows,
taverns, and public buildings, and sold in
printshops. Old hierarchies broke down, and new forms began to flourish: the
ballad opera, the
bourgeois tragedy, and especially, a new form of
fiction called the
novel with which authors such as
Henry Fielding had great success. Therefore, by that time, Hogarth hit on a new idea: "painting and engraving modern moral subjects ... to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture was my stage", as he himself remarked in his manuscript notes. He drew from the highly moralizing
Protestant tradition of Dutch
genre painting, and the very vigorous satirical traditions of the English
broadsheet and other types of popular print. In England the fine arts had little comedy in them before Hogarth. His prints were expensive, and remained so until early 19th-century reprints brought them to a wider audience.
Parodic borrowings from Old Masters When analysing the work of the artist as a whole,
Ronald Paulson says, "In ''
A Harlot's Progress'', every single plate but one is based on
Dürer's images of the story of the
Virgin and the story of the
Passion." In other works, he parodies
Leonardo da Vinci's
Last Supper. According to Paulson, Hogarth is subverting the religious establishment and the orthodox belief in an immanent
God who intervenes in the lives of people and produces
miracles. Hogarth was a
Deist, a believer in a God who created the universe but takes no direct hand in the lives of his creations. Thus, as a "comic history painter", he often poked fun at the old-fashioned, "beaten" subjects of religious art in his paintings and prints. Hogarth also rejected
Lord Shaftesbury's then-current ideal of the
classical Greek male in favour of the living, breathing female. He said, "Who but a bigot, even to the
antiques, will say that he has not seen faces and necks, hands and arms in living women, that even the Grecian
Venus doth but coarsely imitate." ==Personal life==