Hogarth was keen for commercial success and public acclaim, and
in the late 1720s established himself as the major painter of fashionable
"Conversations". These were small-scale group portraits
of the aristocracy or newly-arrived bourgeoisie, involving the sitters
in elegant social interaction, influenced by the delicate style
of French Rococo painters like Watteau. Hogarth communicated the
vitality and immediacy of theatrical performance in these portraits,
often adding visual humour to the scene, providing a liveliness
and effervescence which transcends the potential formality of the
standard group portrait. He wrote: "Subjects I consider'd as
writers do; my Picture was my Stage and men and women my actors."
Hogarth was a shrewd and practical businessman,
as well as artistically ambitious, and despite the reputation and
social status that these pictures brought him, felt that the "Conversation"
portrait fees did not provide him with sufficient income. In his own
words, "I therefore recommend[ed] those who come to me for them
to other painters and turn[ed] my thoughts to still a new way of proceeding,
viz. Painting and Engraving modern moral Subject[s] a Field unbroke
up in any country or any age." These series of "modern moral
subjects", or "Progresses", beginning with the six
part Harlot's Progress, in 1731, constituted a completely new art
form that became Hogarth's best-known legacy. The paintings made a
satirical narrative that used recognizable London characters and places
to describe the fate of young people corrupted by the shallowness
and ruthless hypocrisy of contemporary London life. The series combined
Hogarth's skill as a painter with his interest in satirical theatre
and literature. The writer Charles Lamb commented later, "his
graphic representations are indeed books: they have the teeming, fruitful
suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at - his prints
we read."
The Harlot's Progress was an enormous success, and suited Hogarth's
needs - he reportedly able to sell by subscription at least 1240
sets of engravings from the paintings, thus enlarging the audience
for his work and freeing him from dependence on the patronage of
the aristocracy. The rampant pirating of cheap prints of the series
("destructive to the Ingenious", as Hogarth remarked,
remembering his father's exploitation by unscrupulous printers)
made him the moving spirit behind the Engravers' Copyright Act,
passed in Parliament in 1735. Hogarth published engravings of his
later series, The Rake's Progress, the day after the act became
law, and in 1743 he produced Marriage a la Mode. These were both
witty commentaries on the triviality and moral vacuousness of fashionable
high society life in London, the visual equivalent of his close
friend Henry Fielding's satirical novels. Later, Hogarth made his
unequivocal moral message accessible to all corners of society in
series produced as cheap popular engravings, like Industry and Idleness
(1747), which extolled the merits of hard work and industriousness.
Hogarth's moral approach and concern for vulnerable young people
in Georgian London was reflected in his involvement in contemporary
philanthropic initiatives. Hogarth was a governor of St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, for which he had painted The Pool of Bethesda and The
Good Samaritan in 1736-7 without a fee (albeit to wrench the commission
from a rival Italian painter, Amiconi). For Captain Thomas Coram's.
Foundling Hospital for orphans, established in 1740, Hogarth not
only contributed paintings for the grand public rooms, but also
persuaded other eminent British painters to donate works to hang
in the Hospital, thereby creating the first public collection of
British painting.
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