Hogarth (Chaucer Library of Art) Book

William Hogarth (1697-1764) ranks amongst the few artists whose work defines a period of history: for his paintings, drawings, engravings and portraits have become the accepted representation of London in the Eighteenth Century. Hogarth’s work chronicles the seething, impossible London of Gin Lane and Beer Street, with a piercing, almost narrative moral sense exemplified by such prints as A Harlot’s Progress, thepictorial tale of a country girl gone to ruin. A complex, profoundly curious artist, Hogarth would leave an equally rich legacy for British art, his instincts for parody and story-telling becoming essential to our traditions of artistic social commentary. Michael Rosenthal’s study reviews the entire corpus of Hogarth’s work, reproducing much of his celebrated series The Rake’s Progress and Marriage a la Mode, and addresses Hogarth’s timeless status as the quintessential ‘artist of his epoch’.Read More