HOGARTH (William), an excellent moral painter, was born in London, in the parish of St Bartholomew. His father, being poor, put him apprentice to an engraver of pewter-pots; and in this humble situation he passed through his time, without seeming to have any higher views. His apprenticeship was however no sooner expired, than he pursued every method of improving himself in the art of drawing, of which his former master had given him but a rude idea. This ambition was productive of distress; and while
he spent his time in preparing for his future excellence, he felt all the contempt that indigence could produce. Being one day arrested by his landlord for the trifling sum of 20 shillings, and being bailed by one of his friends; in order to be revenged on her, he drew her picture in caricatura, and in that single figure gave marks of the dawn of a superior genius. The first piece in which he distinguished himself as a painter, was in the figures of the Wandsworth assembly; which are drawn from the life, without any circumstances of his burlesque manner. His next piece was his Pool of Bethesda, which he presented to St Bartholomew's hospital. His being afterwards employed to draw designs for a new edition of Hudibras, proved the first opportunity of signalizing himself in that style. The Harlot's Progress was the first of his burlesque pictures, or rather life-pictures; for it is unjust to give them the character either of burlesque or grotesque pieces, since both the one and the other convey to us a departure from nature, to which Hogarth almost always strictly adhered. The ingenious Abbé du Bos has often complained, that no history-painter of his time went through a series of actions, and thus, like an historian, pointed the successive fortunes of an hero from the cradle to the grave. What du Bos wished to see done, Hogarth performed. In the above piece, he launches out his young adventurer a simple girl upon the town, and conducts her through all the vicissitudes of wretchedness, to a premature death. This was painting to the reason and to the heart; none had ever before made the art subservient to the purposes of morality and instruction: a book like this is fitted to every soil and every observer, and he that runs may read.
The Rake's Progress succeeded the former; which, though not equal to it, came short only of that single excellence, in which no other could come near him in that way. It consists of eight prints; and, like the former, it exhibits a complete history adapted to answer the most moral purposes: as is also his marriage A-la-mode, in six prints; and The Effects of Idleness and Industry, exemplified in the conduct of two fellow-apprentices, in 12 prints, &c.—Mr Hogarth travelled with several of his companions to Paris; but had no sooner landed at Calais, than, attempting to draw the gate of that city, he was taken into custody, on suspicion of his being a spy. He was soon set at liberty: but the resentment he felt on this occasion, induced him to design the satirical print called The Gate of Calais; and he never after drew a Frenchman but in caricatura. The last remarkable circumstance of his life was his contest with Mr Churchill. It is said that both met at Westminster-hall; Hogarth to take by his eye a ridiculous likeness of the poet, and Churchill to furnish a description of the painter. But Hogarth's print of the poet was not much esteemed, and the poet's letter to him was but little admired. Some pretend, indeed, to say that it broke the painter's heart; but this we can from good authority say is not true. Indeed the report falls of itself; for we may as well say, that Hogarth's pencil was as efficacious as the poet's pen, since neither long survived the contest.
The following character of this artist is given by Mr Gilpin in his Essay on Prints. "The works of this
Hogarth. this master abound in true humour; and satire, which is generally well-directed: they are admirable moral lessons, and a fund of entertainment suited to every taste; a circumstance, which shews them to be just copies of nature. We may consider them too as valuable repositories of the manners, customs, and dresses of the present age. What a fund of entertainment would a collection of this kind afford, drawn from every period of the history of Britain?—How far the works of Hogarth will bear a critical examination, may be the subject of a little more inquiry.
“ In design, Hogarth was seldom at a loss. His invention was fertile; and his judgment accurate. An improper incident is rarely introduced; a proper one rarely omitted. No one could tell a story better; or make it, in all its circumstances, more intelligible. His genius, however, it must be owned, was suited only to low or familiar subjects. It never soared above common life: to subjects naturally sublime, or which, from antiquity or other accidents, borrowed dignity, he could not rise.
“ In composition we see little in him to admire. In many of his prints the deficiency is so great, as plainly to imply a want of all principle; which makes us ready to believe, that when we do meet with a beautiful group, it is the effect of chance. In one of his minor works, the Idle Prentice, we seldom see a crowd more beautifully managed than in the last print. If the sheriff's officers had not been placed in a line, and had been brought a little lower in the picture, so as to have formed a pyramid with the cart, the composition had been unexceptionable; and yet the first print of this work is such a striking instance of disagreeable composition, that it is amazing how an artist who had any idea of beautiful forms, could suffer so unmasterly a performance to leave his hands.
“ Of the distribution of light Hogarth had as little knowledge as of composition. In some of his pieces we see a good effect; as in the Execution just mentioned: in which, if the figures at the right and left corners had been kept down a little, the light would have been beautifully distributed on the fore-ground, and a fine secondary light spread over part of the crowd. But at the same time there is so obvious a deficiency in point of effect, in most of his prints, that it is very evident he had no principles.
“ Neither was Hogarth a master in drawing. Of the muscles and anatomy of the head and hands he had perfect knowledge; but his trunks are often badly moulded, and his limbs ill set on: yet his figures, upon the whole, are inspired with so much life and meaning, that the eye is kept in good-humour, in spite of its inclination to find fault.
“ The author of the Analysis of beauty, it might be supposed, would have given us more instances of grace than we find in the works of Hogarth; which shews strongly, that theory and practice are not always united. Many opportunities his subjects naturally afford of introducing graceful attitudes; and yet we have very few examples of them. With instances of picturesque grace his works abound.
“ Of his expression, in which the force of his genius lay, we cannot speak in terms too high. In every mode of it he was truly excellent. The passions he thoroughly understood; and all the effects which they
produce in every part of the human frame: he had the happy art also of conveying his ideas with the same precision with which he conceived them.—He was excellent too in expressing any humorous oddity which we often see stamped upon the human face. All his heads are cast in the very mould of nature. Hence that endless variety, which is displayed through his works; and hence it is, that the difference arises between his heads, and the affected caricatures of those masters who have sometimes amused themselves with patching together an assemblage of features from their own ideas. Such are Spaniolet's; which, though admirably executed, appear plainly to have no archetypes in nature. Hogarth's, on the other hand, are collections of natural curiosities. The Oxford-heads, the Physician's-arms, and some of his other pieces, are expressly of this humorous kind. They are truly comic, though ill-natured effusions of mirth: more entertaining than Spaniolet's, as they are pure nature; but less innocent, as they contain ill-directed ridicule.—But the species of expression in which this master perhaps most excels, is that happy art of catching those peculiarities of art and gesture which the ridiculous part of every profession contract, and which for that reason become characteristic of the whole. His counsellors, his undertakers, his lawyers, his usurers, are all conspicuous at sight. In a word, almost every profession may see in his works, that particular species of affectation which they should most endeavour to avoid.
“ The execution of this master is well suited to his subjects, and manner of treating them. He etches with great spirit, and never gives one unnecessary stroke.”