William Hogarth (November 10th 1697 with London - October 26th 1764 in London) is an English painter and engraver.

Biography

His/her father, originating in the Westmorland, modestly makes live his family of his trade of schoolmaster, then of corrector of tests of printing works. At sixteen years, the teenager between like apprentice in the workshop of a silver engraver, Elect Gamble, where it engraves emblems on parts of goldsmithery.

In 1725 it carries out seventeen engravings for Hudibras , of Samuel Butler, which also provides him the subject of twelve prints published separately. In parallel, the young man between this same year in the founded art school three years before by sir James Thornhill. This last, admiring the first series of tables of his/her son-in-law, has Harlot' S Progress ( the career of a prostitute ), would have declared, according to Hogarth itself: “The man able to paint compositions as this one can maintain a woman… ”, adding however, “… without dowry. ”

In fact, for already a year, the young man, who continues to engrave, has also affirmed himself as painter. Like its engravings, some of its first fabrics testify to its qualities of satirist. Others express a sensitivity particular to the power of expression of the theater which will never leave it. Thus it illustrates John Gay ( The Beggar' S Opera - the opera of the gueux , 1728) and Shakespeare ( Scene from The Tempest - a scene of “the Storm” , v. 1736-38; David Garrick in the Character off Richard III - the Garrick actor in the role of Richard III , 1745). “My painting is my scene, will write Hogarth, and my characters are actors who give a quiet mime to it. ”

It is besides in the representation of simple people or representatives of the middle-class rising class that he arrives at the greatest expressivity. But Hogarth reached with its greater virtuosity in the contemporary and moral subjects which it called its “parts morals”. In the satirical form that the English literature with Jonathan Swift knows then, the painter fustigates manners of the British company. It is interested in the social reforms, it is the friend of writers like Tobias Smollett or Henry Fielding, of which it shares the contempt for political corruption. Also, in spite of the success of its portraits, Hogarth, as he will write it in his autobiographical notes ( autobiographical notes ), turns its thoughts “towards a kind even more original: the painting and the engraving of modern moral subjects, a field which still exploited at any time and in any country. ”

Having painted a fabric representing to raise it of a prostitute, Hogarth the watch with his/her friends, who congratulate it. Perhaps inspired by a contemporary novel of Daniel Defoe, it then decides to give him during, and finally to integrate it in a whole of six tables which content unhappy history, but with the edifying outcome, of a girl of the countryside: has Harlot' S Progress ( the career of a prostitute ) will be completed at the end of 1731, its success encourages the artist to put in building site as of the end 1733 a new series, has Rake' S Progress ( the career of coiled ), completed in 1735 which tells the disorders to which can lead alcohol and the women.

In 1735, the artist is one of the signatories of a petition which will end in the vote by the Parliament of the “Law Hogarth”, which prohibits to draw from the prints of a work of art without the assent of the author. The concern of touching the most possible world, and in all the layers of the company, also pushes the engraver to vary the style of its prints. Thus, Hogarth does not hesitate to make realize “by the largest Masters of Paris”, as he announces it six engravings on copper of the Mariage to the mode (v. 1743 - 1745), satirical but refined description of “a modern adventure in the high society. ” On the other hand, it approaches the popular print to oppose the beneficial effects of beer to the disasters caused by the gin ( Beer Street and Gin Lane - the Street of Beer and the Lane of the Gin , 1751) or “to write” the twelve truculent chapters of a fable where the careers of two apprentices are opposed ( Industry and Idleness - Zeal and the Idleness , 1747). The virtues of lead it to become Lord Mayor of London, the defects of the other are sanctioned by the scaffold.

If Hogarth succeeds fully as “comic painter of history” as calls it Fielding, it is also tested with the great painting of history and religious painting: it realizes in particular in 1735 - 1736 the Good Samaritan and the Swimming pool of Béthesda for the main staircase of St Bartholomew' S Hospital and, in 1756, a great triptych for St Mary Redcliffe, with Bristol. But in the England Protestant woman, religious painting is little appraisal.

In its Analysis off Beauty ( Analysis of the beauty , 1753), Hogarth affirms that the principle of the beauty lies in the corrugated line or serpentine baptized by him of the name of line of beauty. In the foreword, Hogarth announces motivation great which animates its project: as good logic of the Lights, it is acted, in this field as in so much of others, to leave the speech on the beauty and the grace the élitistes fogs (the certain something, the " mystery of the création") and of the academic hierarchies (only the copy of the old models makes it possible to reach the beautiful ideal). The treaty is then divided into 17 chapters: 6 devoted to the great principles from the pictorial composition, 5 with a theory of the lines, 3 with lighting and the color, and 3 with the face, the attitude and finally with the action.

Its death, the October 26th 1764, was going to deprive England of an eminently original artist whose dramatic realism and the power remained unequalled.

Hogarth belonged to the cultural avant-garde of London, and spent much time with playwrights, actors and artists. First English painter to give to his country a pictorial identity distinct from that of the continent, Hogarth is a major figure of artistic Europe of the XVIIIe century. By its work of theorist, Hogarth opens the way with a recognition of the minor kinds which are the portrait, the landscape and the engraving, which will play a crucial role in the emergence of an English school, of Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, until Joseph Mallord William Turner and John Constable, while passing by Thomas Rowlandson, William Blake and James Gillray.

See too

External bonds

• Hogarth on the site of the Foundation Shepherd
• , William Hogarth: Bibliography online
• William Hogarth' S Realm
• the Career of Coiled (1735), by William Hogarth
• Details of the exposure William Hogarth 1697-1764 | Museum of Louvre

Be-X-old: УільямХогарт Zh-min-nan: William Hogarth

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