Hogarths Important Works - Essay Example

? Hogarth’s view of London Hogarth’s objective was to present himself as an artist who was able to interpret London from a visual perspective to portray urban, contemporary life. So successful was he in this mission that the early Georgian period when he was active in his painting work came to be known as the “age of Hogarth”.(Riding, 2007). The overriding image of Hogarth is that of a satirist, who through the multitude and range of his artistic works, was able to present a view of the city that was primarily presented from a somewhat cynical view point. This report examines two of the works of Hogarth in order to assess the proposition that Hiogarth’s view of London as portrayed in his works may have been a fairly accurate one. Hogarth’s important works: Hogarth’s paintings portray a view of London streets that is bustling and chaotic, such that a viewer looking at the paintings gets a feeling almost of claustrophobia because they appear to be so packed and close. The angle and view which the artist presents make the view feel as if s/he is walking through crowded streets in London, as opposed to neat and well ordered ones. This feeling of being crowded and congested may be noted especially in his work titled “Southwark Fair (the humours of a fair) which is dated January 1733. This particular painting is centred around the church of St. George in Southwark. This particular painting may be a follow on of the series of eight paintings which comprised the series known as the “rake’s progress”. These were first presented by Hogarth as canvases and depicted the life of Tom Rakewell , the son of a rich merchant, who comes to London and spends away all his money on prostitution and gambling, so that he is finally sent off to prison and on to bedlam. The last painting in the series shows an insane and violent Tom consigned to a mental hospital and the painting titled “Southwark fair” might represent Tom’s descent into bedlam.. To one corner of the painting titled “Southwark Fair”, there is a stage and a group of performers falling off the stage as it crashes with Tom’s descent into bedlam. The painting is replete with the same sensation of being in a crowded place that is packed with street performers and prostitutes. As Brennan (2009) has pointed out, one out of every five women in London during that time period were prostitutes. There was a high demand for virgins and the noblemen paid a high price for the privilege of deflowering virgins. Hogarth’s portrayal of these prostitutes in his works, as also further detailed below, points out that monetary considerations took precedence over morality and virtue. Young women could earn much higher sums of money by selling out their bodies to high paying men, as opposed to plying an honest trade and working as maids or in similar professions. Hence, greed was the sole motive for the eschewing of virtue and Hogarth’s portrayal of these prostitutes is such that a fall is inevitably associated with the lives of these harlots, after years of fattening of their wallets through their earnings. Hogarth’s works of art question the existing moral standards in the London of his day. In an exhaustive discussion of black slaves and the moral and social connotations that were associated with the training of the former slaves into docile houseboys, Molineaux has noted that owning a black houseboy had become equivalent to owning a pet or a dog, so that the sight of white ladies with their black slaves had become fairly common in London. In his series of works titled “ A harlot’s progress” that consist of six different plates, Hogarth details the story of a young woman who arrives in London and descends into prostitution. The second print shows the harlot in luxurious surroundings, ensconced in a parlor owned by a rich Jewish merchant, where the harlot is also attended by a monkey and a black slave, thereby signifying in a satirical manner, the so called “high standing” that this woman has attained by virtue of being the rich Jewish man’s kept woman. According to Molineaux(2005), Hogarth’s print , i.e, plate no: 2 of the series titled “A harlot’s progress” showing the monkey and the black slave signify the “high keeping” of the prostitute, with the print also participating in the ongoing critique of the “keeping of mistresses for corrupting the normal bonds of marriage”.(Molineaux , 499). In effect, the portrayal of the prostitute as apparently enjoying all of the so called attributes of high society life is in effect, a mockery of the clothes and behaviour of fashionable society. The portrayal of the prostitute in this particular print appears to suggest that she is enjoying a very high standard of living, the kind of lifestyle that is accessible only to the very rich and famous. Her avenue for attaining to this apparent high status is by selling her body and her self-respect to the highest bidder. In particular, Hogarth has mocked the fashions of the day and in analyzing his work “A harlot’s progress”, Molineaux points out that it represents the consumerism that took over English society during the period, such that the fashionably clothed female body became the embodiment of male desire for her. Hence, the fashion appears to signify the sale by the female of her body as an object of commerce, so that fashion began to be increasingly associated with negative connotations during the eighteenth century. According to Molineaux (2005), Hogarth was also a participant tin this discourse by satirically highlighting female vanity and fashion and associating it with pets and black slaves. The last plate of the harlot’s tale shows the inevitable fall and her relegation to a lonely state in her old age, where she finally dies of syphilis. The fact that Hogarth chooses to concentrate so much of his time and attention on prostitutes in his works suggests how prevalent they were during that era in London. Street performers and their performances and reactions of onlookers also form a substantial body of his work. The London that Hogarth portrays is one that is crowded and chaotic, full of people of loose moral virtue. As opposed to showing London as a clean and rich city that is orderly, with his subjects being members of the rich aristocracy, Hogarth chooses to concentrate instead on the raucous, bawdy and less genteel elements of society. His portrayal of these characters is somewhat ironic and sarcastic, suggesting that they are giving themselves notions of grandeur which may not be founded in reality, Rather, as Tom Rakewell discovers, London can be a place where riches are quickly made but also quickly lost, so that ultimately, one is condemned to a lonely and cruel fate in old age, just as Tom is condemned to a mental institution after years of enjoying the fruits London had to offer, such as prostitution and raucous living. Analysis: On the basis of the above, it may be noted that Hogarth’s representations of London appear to suggest a city that was teeming with people, so much so that a viewer feels claustrophobic being in the city that was rife with prostitutes and performers. London’s streets in Hogarth’s works are always crowded and disorderly, with scenes of raucous and bawdy merriment. In the “Southwark Fair” for example, the church of St. George stands in the background, appearing to subtly suggest the morality and virtue required in an ideal situation; however directly in front of the church, the crowds throng the streets in a scene of utter disorderly chaos. The irony inherent in this portrayal is the reality of the required ideal and virtue as symbolized in the presence of the church, versus the reality of the disorderly and raucous crowd thronging the forefront of the church. It is also significant to note that most of the crowds are performers and those watching performers; which further suggests the element of non-reality or acting and theatrics that permeates the entire scene. By portraying performers, Hogarth alludes to the element of illusion that permeates the life of characters such as the common man and woman , prostitutes and performers. The reality of the Georgian era as pointed out by Brennan (2009) is the high number of women who were prostitutes; poor women who came to London from the country because by selling their bodies they could make much more money than they could through an honest day’s labour. Brennan has detailed the research carried out by writer/historian Dan Cruickshank, who states that Georgian London was a “vast, hostile, soulless, all-devouring but also fatally attractive place that makes and breaks, that tempts, inflames, satisfies, yet corrupts and ultimately kills.”(Brennan, 2009). Hence, Hogarth’s portrayal in the Southwark fair work may actually be a fairly true representation of the reality that was Georgian London. In truth, the London of that era was a place of sin and historian Cruickshank has estimated that there were 62,500 harlots working in the capital during the 1700s, which totalled up to one in every five of the female population (Brennan, 2009). Moreover, Cruickshank has also pointed out that most of the young virgins who took to harlotry, continued in the trade when middle aged, drawing in other innocent young girls into the trade and finally ended their lives with sexually transmitted diseases. On this basis, Hogarth’s portrayal of the madding crowds as it were, can only be held to be realistic, because his ironic representation of the crowds as “performers” is synonymous with the performances that young girls would put forth for their patrons that would crowd around to bid and see who would get the pickings. The London of the Georgian era was a place of riotous chaos and performances, but also one that was cold and cruelty, with no mercy for those who were old and/or vulnerable. Southwark Fair, by portraying the church in the background, also suggests the external restrictions that may be existed in the form of church authority which was being disregarded by the harlots and performers. The demand for virtue is contrasted in this work with the actual reality of depravity and riotous merriment that existed. While Hogarth presents street performers in his work, the presence of the church and the association with virtue suggests that immorality is also an issue, thus the crowds of women may represent prostitutes in large numbers. This would not however be an unrealistic representation, because as historian Cruickshank has pointed out, one out of every five women was a prostitute in that period. Similarly, in the plate no: 2 of “A harlot’s progress”, there is an indirect visual allusion made to the apparent pomp and show and fashionable lifestyle being enjoyed by the prostitute, purely by virtue of being one. The monies associated with the position have already been stressed by Cruickshank has being a lure for many women to come into London and take to the age old trade. In this work, Hogart’s allusion is somewhat more indirect, because the work suggests that she acquires a false nobility and standard of living by proxy. The associations with crime are apparent through both of the work cited above, because the presence of such crowds of people/performers and the greed for wealth coupled with passion would have inevitably given rise to crimes of passion. Conclusions: On the basis of the above, it must be concluded that on the whole, Hogarth’s portrayal of London may have been a fairly accurate one. The verification of the existence of high levels of prostitution and associated crime in Georgian London suggest that the portrayal of chaos, bawdiness and raucous merriment in Hogarth’s works may have in fact, come quite close to the actual reality of the time. Hogarth’s presentation is ironic and satirical, because his works depict the entry of innocent people into London and the corrupting influence of the city that pushes them into a sinful life that finally deteriorates into a sad and painful end in a cruel, cold and unfeeling city. The very depth and number of the crowds in Hogarth’s works make the viewer feel claustrophobic and this may have been a fairly accurate assessment of the way it must have felt to live in London’s inner street and market areas, where thousands plied their trades and thousands of others thronged the streets to sample those wares. Hogarth’s view cannot be said to be conservative, because the very atmosphere and numbers of people in the works and the associated negative connotations suggests the plethora of sin. When viewed against the statistical figures presented by Cruickshank earlier, i.e, 62,500 harlots in London, this is not a conservative estimate. Instead, the suggestion in Hogarth’s works about the vast numbers of people engaged in disorderly, chaotic behaviour and practices may be an accurate representation. Hogarth’s works view London with a cynical, satirical eye; his representations are deliberately suffocating in a visual sense; this perhaps is a fairly accurate representation of how it must have been , with thousands of lustful men converging on young innocent women from the country plying their wares. These virgins instigated bidding for their services by undressing in front of a vast crowd of admirers who bid for her wares; the element of performance is an integral part of the prostitution activity that must have gone on in London. During the Georgian era, London was a sin city and Hogarth’s representation of Southwark Fair especially is like a depiction of Vanity Fair, with its teeming masses and its high levels of sins and depravity. The works appear to be deliberately suffocating in a visual sense because the pressures exerted by roaring crowds could have pushed many an innocent person over the limits, into the vices of sin. Prostitution in particular, appears to have been very common, thus Hogarth’s presentation of large numbers of women in his works was not a conservative representation at all, it could very well represent the actual state of events in London during the era. The illusion of wealth and grandeur would have been the motivating factor driving many of these girls into prostitution, but as Hogarth ironically shows in his works, the external indications of wealth and happiness would be belied through other visual cues suggesting the depravity and destruction to follow. For instance, in the “southwark Fair” work, the stage at one corner has come crashing down like a pack of cards, suggesting that the external gains are only superficial and that it will all come crashing down soon. Similarly in the harlot’s tale, the ultimate fall of the harlot only echoes what the crashing down of the stage in the other work, i.e, destruction and a bad end. References: * Brennan, Zoe, 2009. “Sin city: Georgian London evokes images of elegance and fine art....in truth one in five women were prostitutes”, Mail Online, 10th October, 2009; Retrieved May 4, 2011 from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1219347/Sin-city-Georgian-London-evokes-images-elegance-fine-art--truth-women-prostitutes.html * Molineaux, Catherine, 2005. “Hogarth’s fashionable slaves: Moral corruption in eighteenth century England”, ELH, 72(2): 495-520 * Riding, Christine, 2007. “Hogarth’s London: Satire and the street”, History Today, 57(2) Read More