Book Description
The reputation of William Hogarth (1697-1764) rests largely on his pictorial stories, a series of engravings that he called "modern Moral Subjects," the most famous being the Harlot's and the Rake's Progress. In this catalog, David Bindman works backward from Hogarth's reputation today--where he is seen by some as a conservative populist and by others as a political radical--and examines his impact on various artists over the past three centuries. Bindman also sets Hogarth's prints firmly in their historical context, discussing the artist's public and the different influences on his work, from Roman satire to the politics of the day. The result is an engaging and insightful portrayal not only of William Hogarth, but also of the middle years of the eighteenth century. Art lovers will enjoy this book, but so too will anyone with an interest in the literature and history of the mid-eighteenth century. ... Read more

Book Description
And A Comment On Their Moral Tendency. This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Everyone should know Hogarth
Hogarth is the best. His rich images of the moral underbelly of London are as resonant today as they ever were. The level of draftsmanship is high. The many symbolic details are superb. The plotlines combine moral outrage with lurid vouyerism with smirking satire - Bret Easton Ellis should have spent forty years as a Hogarth scholar before attempting to write his first book. This edition is cheap and large, with commentary that is a pleasure to read. I recommend it to anyone.

engraving of hogarth
this book is pretty awesome, it contains a lot of hogarth's popular print series and is an oversized book, which i guess could be a good or bad thing. i thought it was pretty awesome. if you like hogarth and dont have a lot of money, get this book, cause its like 14 dollars or something. all of the dover books are good in general i guess

Quality Reproductions and Insight into a Bygone Age
The large size of the pages (11X14)allows the reader to appreciate the quality and detail of Hogarth's work. Beyond the artistic merit of the engravings, I have found them to be of great value in understanding England of the 1700's. As it is said, "a picture is worth a thousandwords". This is especially true with Hogarth, who was as much ahumorist and social commentator as he was an artist. Sean Shesgreenprovides the (absolutely) necessary background and explanitory informationto understand the pictures. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Combining in-depth history with perceptive explication of the references encoded in William Hogarth's images, Jenny Uglow enables modern readers to fully understand the society that shaped the art of William Hogarth (1697-1764). Hugely popular engravings such as A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-La-Mode commented on the tumultuous changes sweeping through 18th-century English society; Hogarth was appreciated as a moralist as much as a painter. Uglow colorfully recreates a vanished world, as well as the prickly nature of a man who revolutionized the role and the status of British artists.Book Description

Customer Reviews (6)

Monumental
William Hogarth, though one of the finest artists of his time, was still very much a man of his time.His thoughts, his art, and his life do not transcend history -- to understand him and his work, it is necessary to put them in the context of the day.So Jenny Uglow paints a thorough and vivid picture of the London of the early to mid 1700's, from politics to pop culture, and shows us Hogarth's place in it.That is the reason this book is so huge -- it really is a snapshot of Hogarth's world, just as the subtitle suggests.

Another reason for the focus on Hogarth the artist and the man of his time is that there is relatively little information on Hogarth's personal life.But from what Uglow can show us, Hogarth was a pugnacious, vulgar, vain little homunculus, so too much study of his personality might have detracted from an appreciation of his accomplishments and ideals, both of which were sterling.It is probably for the best that we see Hogarth through the lens of his work and his time, as this is where his greatness lies.

And this book's greatness lies in its portrait of London in the eighteenth century, which is detailed, gossipy, and endlessly fascinating, running the gamut of events from lofty political doings at court to pop-culture crazes like Mary Tofts, the hoaxer who claimed to have given birth to rabbits.In her biography of London's most popular artist of his time, Jenny Uglow brings the entire city to brilliant life.

I wish I could give this book SIX stars (* * * * * *)!
I would give this book six stars if I could.It is one of my favorite books of all time.More than any other book I have ever read I learned about the subject of the biography (Hogarth in this case) because of the beautiful way the author placed him in his time.By learning about Hogarth's world we can learn so much about the artistic fashions of his time and how that influenced the way he made his art.We also learn about the influence Hogarth's artistic genius had in re-shaping that world and the artists who followed him.

We learn about his family ties to the court and his failed ambitions there.But his ambitions for his art were even higher and there he succeeded to our great benefit.We also learn about his quirky personality, how his friends described him, and their wonderful stories of their life with him.Hogarth was as amazing a character as any he drew.

The book is also full of wonderfully reproduced art in black and white and a generous number of works are reproduced in color.Ms Uglow gives us in depth and wonderfully insightful instruction about all these works.It is a big book, but one I believe you will always treasure having read.It is brilliantly written.This book has a prominent place in my library and one I urge everyone to read.It is a treasure.

A life and a world
Jenny Uglow chose wisely when she decided to write her Hogarth biography as an old-fashioned life-and-times.

Hogarth recorded his life in his art rather than in literary documents, but fortunately for his biographers, his art everywhere displayed his attitudes to, and his interaction with, his times. It's not surprising, therefore, that Uglow's sub-title is "A Life and a World".

And she renders that world of eighteenth-century London superbly. Want to know about deism, the Bangorian Controversy, the culturr of procuresses and brothels, the attitudes to women? Go for it - it's all there. Or perhaps you've forgotten what little you knew about the political system of the times, its aesthetic theories, the influence of The Spectator, or the impact of the opera on cultural life? Good - that's also there.

Not only is it there but it is also insinuated so smoothly into the biographical narrative that you're scarcely aware you're being instructed. Moreover, if the reviews I've read are representative, you may also be unaware that some of this instruction is couched in ravishingly beautiful prose. Re-read the sections on Gay's "The Beggar's Opera", Walpole's reputation and the culture of refinement and politeness, for example. Are you not in the hands of a writer who has the rhythms of classic English prose throbbing through her veins? Not convinced? Read it aloud.

At his best, Hogarth was a portraitist of genius. At her best, so is Jenny Uglow. Gaze upon her brilliant joint portrait of Hogarth and Fielding in Chapter 9, but be sure to gaze in awe.

And the mention of Henry Fielding is a reminder that Uglow has already written a study of him, as well as biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot. Presumably, she has been steeped in the culture of English literature. And it shows. Her analyses of Hogarth's works are infused with that attention to detailed perception and critical interpretation that dominated academic "close reading" literary criticism decades ago. They draw attention to details you've never noticed before and fill in historical and biographical background you've never been privy to.

This biography is a wonderful read for anyone interested in Hogarth the artist, or for anyone fascinated by Hogarth, the tough-minded, opportunistic, satirical subversive. William Hazlitt captured the essence of the artist in eight words when he said Hogarth was "carried away by a passion for the ridiculous" - a point well supported by the dozens of reproductions threaded through the text. Jenny Uglow boils down the essence of the man when she says that obedience and submissiveness were never his virtues, a point supported by the sharply written anecdotes that pepper the narrative.

She needs more space to capture the spirit of the times, but capture it she does in the many passages of historical background and the pen portraits of London. (Don't miss the street walk at the beginning of Chapter 15.)

After spending 20 hours or so in Jenny Uglow's model of Hogarth's world, you may, like me, be reluctant to the real one...of cooking and cleaning and...oh, no! ...I can't stand it: I'm going back to Southwark Fair and the Harlot's Progress and, yes, even to Satan, Sin and Death!

a brilliant account of 18th century Britain
Packed with facts and figures, this book is an interesting insight into the life and times of an early 18th century London artist and philanthropist.

Informative but over-written
Though the subject is an obscure one, even for the English, the usefulness of Uglow's research is compromised by the fulsomeness of her writing. She will apply four descriptive clauses to an engravng when one well chosen one would be enough to stimulate imaginative understanding. It is also distressing that Uglow arrives at virtually the same conclusions, draws the same moral messages, about whatever sets of engravings she discusses. Was the man so monotonous? Or is it the biographer? ... Read more

Book Description

This fresh and engaging perspective of William Hogarth (1697-1764) reveals him as a figure who reinvented the very idea of what it is to be an artist.

Hogarth was the first artist to make his living as a humorist, brilliantly inventing a means of reproducing a wit for wide public consumption. He adapted literary satire as a graphic art form and invented the serial print. In his portraits, his representation of human character and its passions broke new ground, as did his depiction of disease and its effects on the body. His sympathy with the human predicament and natural tendency for philanthropy also surfaced in his art.

Taking a thematic approach to this quintessentially British artist, Matthew Craske introduces the reader to Hogarth's varied artistic production, including his series, engravings, portraits, and such major paintings as A Rake's Progress. He brings to life an artist who produced works aimed at fostering self-improvement--works in which vice can ruin the aristocrat as swiftly as the harlot--but also works of great humor. We meet an artist emblematic of his day and time but also utterly innovative and long-sighted.

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent and Fascinating
This is a concise and extremely well written summary of Hogarth and his times, containing many insights into 18th century cultural history.This was a time in which social critics and "self-help" authors were beginning to take over some of the authority formerly held by the church on moral issues, and Hogarth was in the vanguard of those attempting to illustrate how personal liberty if unchecked by good behavior could descend into licentiousness and ruin.Among other interesting topics covered are Hogarth's feelings about the British class system (having risen from modest origins through an apprenticeship as a silver engraver to fame and fortune as an artist and printmaker), his sympathy for the lower classes, and his antipathy to the artistic establishment which overvalued trite and derivative Continental art on religious and mythological themes.

Excellent!
This is a fascinating, well-written and well-researched look at William Hogarth's art, life and ideas.It is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, and includes nice reproductions of a sampling of Hogarth's work (although the sizes of some of the images are small).The author includes a very refreshing common sense in his interpretations of Hogarth's motives, with a good, clear understanding of the 18th-Century British context in which Hogarth lived and worked. ... Read more

Book Description
Although by the adoption of a different type this volume is smaller in size than its predecessor, it actually contains much more matter. The "Memoir" and notes have been revised and amplified; very considerable additions have been made to the " Bibliography " and the Catalogues of Prints and Paintings, besides being verified throughout, have been largely supplemented, A fuller Index has been substituted for that in the previous edition, and there are four uczv illustrations. These things, it is hoped, may have their value. At the same time, the Author by no means pretends to suggest that the book is either exhaustive, or unassailable. ... Read more

Product Description
"The reader has the privilege of re-discovering Hogarth's brawling streets, his charmingly furnished rooms and his spacious gardens along with the man himself, and will find his London as fresh as when he painted and engraved its portraits." ... Read more

Product Description
Binding Unknown, Date not stated ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Thomson Gale on April 1, 2007. The length of the article is 1939 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: "Hogarth": Tate Britain, London.(Exhibition notes)(William Hogarth)
Author: Christie Davies
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 25Issue: 8Page: 60(4)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more