ENGLISH ART IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--WILLIAM HOGARTH.
Hitherto we have seen painting in England confined to foreign artists,
or to natives who more or less slavishly copied them. We have seen,
likewise, that many of the English painters of the latter days of the
seventeenth century were decorators rather than artists, who, forsaking
all truth and nature, covered the walls and ceilings of houses with
simpering shepherdesses and impossible deities. The time of change came,
however, and with it the man who was to be the first original painter of
his country. It is to plain William Hogarth, the son of the Cumberland
schoolmaster, the apprentice of the silver-plate engraver, Ellis Gamble,
that we owe the origin of the English school of painting. The term
"school of painting" is, however, hardly correct, as Hogarth founded no
school, nor has there existed one in England till very recently. We
should rather say that Hogarth was the first English artist who forsook
exhausted conventionalities for large truthfulness and original thought,
and thus paved the way to a new life in art. A man who laughed at the
"black masters," as he called the painters of the most popular works of
the period; and who declared that copying other men's pictures was like
pouring wine from one vessel to another, a process which did not
increase the quality, and allowed the flavour to evaporate, was
naturally regarded as an innovator of a monstrous order. Like all
reformers, Hogarth had to defeat opposition and ridicule. But he dared
to think for himself, and in that courage lay the secret of success.
[Illustration: WILLIAM HOGARTH AND HIS DOG TRUMP. _By_ HOGARTH.
_In the National Gallery._]
WILLIAM HOGARTH was born in 1697 in Ship Court, Old Bailey, hard by
Ludgate Hill, in a house which was pulled down in 1862. His father, who
had received a good education at St. Bees, kept a school in Ship Court,
and sought work from booksellers. But, like many another poor scholar,
he could not make a living, and died disappointed. After spending some
time at school, William Hogarth, warned by the example of his father,
determined to pursue a craft in preference to literature, and was
apprenticed, probably in 1711, to Ellis Gamble, a silversmith in
Cranbourne Alley. Here, though his drawings and engravings were mostly
confined to heraldic devices and the like, the young artist gained
accuracy of touch, to which he added truthfulness of design, and
prepared himself to delineate that London life which was to furnish him
with models for his art. He tells us how he determined to enter a wider
field than that of mere silver-plate engraving, though at the age of
twenty to engrave his own designs on copper was the height of his
ambition. The men and women who jostled him in London streets, or rolled
by him in their coaches, were his models. Besides the keenest powers of
observation, and a sardonic, sympathizing, and pitying humour, he
possessed a wonderfully accurate and retentive memory, which enabled him
to impress a face or form on his mind, and reproduce it at leisure.
Occasionally, if some very attractive or singular face struck his fancy,
he would sketch it on his thumb-nail, and thence transfer it. Hogarth
tells us that "instead of burdening the memory with musty rules, or
tiring the eye with copying dry or damaged pictures, I have ever found
studying from nature the shortest and safest way of obtaining knowledge
of my art." Thus, whether he was watching "society" on its way to court,
or mingling in the midnight orgies of a tavern, Hogarth was storing
portraits which were to appear, some in silks and satins, as in the
_Marriage a la Mode_, others among the humours of _Beer Street_ and the
misery of _Gin Lane_. Hogarth's apprenticeship ended probably in 1718;
we find him studying drawing from the life in the Academy in St.
Martin's Lane. In 1721 he published _An Emblematical Print on the South
Sea (Scheme)_, which was sold at one shilling a copy, and though
defective in the sardonic humour which marked his later works, shows
promise of what was to come. In the same year _The Lottery_ was
published. In 1724 he engraved _Masquerades and Operas_, a satire, which
represents "society" crowding to a masquerade, and led by a figure
wearing a cap and bells on his head, and the Garter on his leg. This
engraving delighted the public whom it satirised, and Hogarth lost much
through piracies of his work. He was employed by the booksellers to
illustrate books with engravings and frontispieces. In "Mottraye's
Travels" (1723) there are eighteen illustrations by Hogarth, seven in
the "Golden Ass of Apuleius" (1724), and five frontispieces in
"Cassandra" (1725). Walpole says, somewhat too severely, that "no
symptoms of genius dawned in those early plates." In 1726 was published,
besides his twelve large prints, which are well known, an edition of
"Hudibras," illustrated by Hogarth in seventeen smaller plates. Of this
Walpole says, "This was among the first of his works that marked him as
a man above the common; yet in what made him then noticed it surprises
me now to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his
talents." The designs of Hogarth are not so witty as the verses of
Butler, but we must remember that the painter had never seen men living
and acting as they are described in the poem; they were not like the
men of whom he made his daily studies. At this period he who dared to be
original, and to satirise his neighbours, had much trouble. The value
set upon his work in those early days may be estimated when we read that
J. Bowles, of the Black Horse, in Cornhill, patronised Hogarth to the
extent of offering him half-a-crown a pound weight for a copperplate
just executed. In 1727, we find a certain upholsterer named Morris
refusing to pay thirty pounds to the artist, because he had failed, in
Morris's opinion, to execute a representation of the _Element of Earth_,
as a design for tapestry, "in a workmanlike manner." It is on record
that the verdict was in favour of Hogarth, who was paid L20 for his work
and L10 for materials. In 1730, Hogarth made a secret marriage at old
Paddington Church, with Jane, only daughter of Sir James Thornhill,
Serjeant-Painter to the King. He had frequented Thornhill's studio, but
whether the art of the court painter, or the face of his daughter was
the greater attraction we know not. There is no doubt that Hogarth's
technique was studied from Thornhill's pictures, and not from those of
Watteau or Chardin, as has been supposed. Hogarth was painting portraits
years before 1730. Mr. Redgrave, in his "Century of Painters," describes
some wall pictures in the house No. 75, Dean Street, Soho, which is said
to have been a residence of Sir James Thornhill. Some of the figures
here are thoroughly of the Hogarth type, especially that of a black man
in a turban, a familiar form in the _Marriage a la Mode_. For a time
after his marriage Hogarth confined himself to painting portraits and
conversation pieces, for which he was well paid, although Walpole
declares that this "was the most ill-suited employment to a man whose
turn was certainly not flattery." Truthfulness, however, is more
valuable in a portrait than flattery, and we surely find it in Hogarth's
portraits of himself, one in the National Gallery, and in that of
_Captain Coram_, at the Foundling. In 1734, Hogarth published the first
of those wonderful unspoken sermons against vice and folly, _A Harlot's
Progress_, which was followed immediately by _A Rake's Progress_, issued
in 1735. _A Harlot's Progress_, in six plates, met with an enthusiastic
reception; it was a bold innovation on the cold stilted style of the
day, and its terrible _reality_ stirred the hearts of all beholders. _A
Rake's Progress_, in eight plates, was scarcely so popular, and the
professors of the kind of art which Hogarth had satirised found many
faults with the reformer. Hogarth was now a person of consequence, and
the once unknown and struggling artist was the talk of the town. _The
Sleeping Congregation_ is a satire on the heavy preachers and
indifferent church-goers of that period. _The Distressed Poet_ and _A
Midnight Modern Conversation_ soon followed. The latter, in which most
of the figures are actual portraits, is considered in France and Germany
the best of this master's single works. In due course appeared _The
Enraged Musician_, of which a wit of the day observed that "it deafens
one to look at it," and _The Strolling Actresses_, which Allan
Cunningham describes as "one of the most imaginative and amusing of all
the works of Hogarth."[G]
One of the best of Hogarth's life stories is the _Marriage a la Mode_,
the original paintings of which are in the National Gallery; they
appeared in prints in 1745. These well-known pictures illustrate the
story of a loveless marriage, where parents sacrifice their children,
the one for rank the other for money. Mr. Redgrave ("A Century of
Painters") tells us that "the novelty of Hogarth's work consisted in the
painter being the inventor of his own drama, as well as painter, and in
the way in which all the parts are made to tend to a dramatic whole;
each picture dependent on the other, and all the details illustrative of
the complete work. The same characters recur again and again, moved in
different tableaux with varied passions, one moral running through all,
the beginning finding its natural climax in the end." Some of the most
striking points in the satire of Hogarth's picture are brought out in
the background, as in the first picture of _Marriage a la Mode_, where
the works of "the black masters" are represented ludicrously, and the
ceiling of the room is adorned with an unnatural picture of the
destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. In 1750 appeared _The March
of the Guards to Finchley_, which is "steeped in humour and strewn with
absurdities." It was originally dedicated to George II., but, so the
story goes, the King was offended by a satire on his Guards, and he
declared "I hate boetry and bainting; neither one nor the other ever did
any good." Certain it is that Hogarth was disappointed by the reception
of his work, and dedicated it to the King of Prussia. The painting of
_The March to Finchley_, on publication of the print, was disposed of by
lottery, and won by the Foundling Hospital. We cannot do more than
mention some of the remaining works by which the satirist continued "to
shoot Folly as she flies." _Beer Street_, and _Gin Lane_, illustrate the
advantages of drinking the national beverage, and the miseries following
the use of gin. _The Cockpit_ represents a scene very common in those
days, and contains many portraits. _The Election_ is a series of four
scenes, published between 1755 and 1758, in which all the varied vices,
humours, and passions of a contested election are admirably represented.
The pictures of this series are in Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's
Inn Fields.
Hogarth's last years were embittered by quarrels, those with Churchill
and Wilkes being the most memorable. The publication in 1753 of his
admirable book, called "The Analysis of Beauty," in which Hogarth tried
to prove that a winding line is the Line of Beauty, produced much
adverse criticism and many fierce attacks, which the painter could not
take quietly. He was further annoyed by the censures passed on his
picture of _Sigismunda_, now in the National Gallery, which he had
painted in 1759 for Sir Richard Grosvenor, and which was returned on his
hands. Two years previously Hogarth had been made Serjeant-Painter to
the King. He did not live to hold this office long; on October 26th,
1764, the hand which had exposed the vices and follies of the day so
truly, and yet with such humour, had ceased to move. Hogarth died in his
house at Leicester Fields; he was buried in Chiswick Churchyard, where
on his monument stands this epitaph by Garrick;--
"Farewel, great Painter of Mankind!
Who reached the noblest point of Art;
Whose _pictured Morals_ charm the Mind,
And through the Eye correct the Heart.
If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay;
If _Nature_ touch thee, drop a Tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For HOGARTH'S honour'd dust lies here."
And yet it is of this man that Walpole says, that "as a painter he has
slender merit." Charles Lamb remarks wisely, in his fine essay on "The
Genius and Character of Hogarth, that his chief design was by no means
to raise a laugh." Of his prints, he says, "A set of severer satires
(for they are not so much comedies, which they have been likened to, as
they are strong and masculine satires), less mingled with anything of
mere fun, were never written upon paper, or graven upon copper. They
resemble Juvenal, or the satiric touches in _Timon of Athens_."
[Illustration]