the Four Stages of cruelty ( The Furnace Training courses off Cruelty ) is a series of four Gravure S realized in 1751 per the English painter and engraver William Hogarth. Engravings describe the course of Tom Nero, of torture of animals, its cruel childhood to its fine tragedy: its execution as a fatal and its Dissection. The first engraving, First stage of cruelty ( First training course off cruelty ), described, Tom Nero child torturing a dog. It is then depicts adult, striking a horse in Second stage of cruelty ( Second training course off cruelty ), and flying, alluring and killing in the third engraving, Cruelty in perfection . In the last scene, entitled The reward off cruelty , Nero, condemned to death, is drawn from the bracket to be dissected by surgeons in a room of anatomy.

William Hogarth sought before very transmitting through her engravings a moral message , itself shocked by the current acts of cruelty of which it was pilot in the streets of London, and wanting according to him “to make become aware with people that all their acts have their consequences” . Published on cheap paper, engravings were intended for the popular classes. Those show an extreme brutality in comparison with lightness and hints of humor of its other work which he considered necessary so that its message impresses the public. Nevertheless, the concern of the detail, the exaggeration of the expressions, the subtle references characteristic of the talent of Hogart are present on these works.