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Print Maker Test

William Hogarth FRSA (/ˈhoʊɡɑːrθ/; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects",[2] and he is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".[3]

Hogarth was born in London to a lower-middle-class family. In his youth he took up an apprenticeship with an engraver, but did not complete the apprenticeship. His father underwent periods of mixed fortune, and was at one time imprisoned in lieu of outstanding debts, an event that is thought to have informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge.[4]

Influenced by French and Italian painting and engraving,[5] Hogarth's works are mostly satirical caricatures, sometimes bawdily sexual,[6] mostly of the first rank of realistic portraiture. They became widely popular and mass-produced via prints in his lifetime, and he was by far the most significant English artist of his generation. Charles Lamb deemed Hogarth's images to be books, filled with "the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read."[7]

Harlot's Progress and Rake's Progress

In 1731 Hogarth completed the earliest of his series of moral works, a body of work that led to significant recognition. The collection of six scenes was entitled A Harlot's Progress and appeared first as paintings (now lost)[20] before being published as engravings.[21]A Harlot's Progress depicts the fate of a country girl who begins prostituting – the six scenes are chronological, starting with a meeting with a bawd and ending with a funeral ceremony that follows the character's death from venereal disease.[22]

The inaugural series was an immediate success and was followed in 1733–1735 by the sequel A Rake's Progress.[23] The second instalment consisted of eight pictures that depicted the reckless life of Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who spends all of his money on luxurious living, services from prostitutes, and gambling – the character's life ultimately ends in Bethlem Royal Hospital. The original paintings of A Harlot's Progress were destroyed in the fire at Fonthill House in 1755; the oil paintings of A Rake's Progress (1733–34) are displayed in the gallery room at Sir John Soane's Museum, London, UK.[24]

When the success of A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress resulted in numerous pirated reproductions by unscrupulous printsellers, Hogarth lobbied in parliament for greater legal control over the reproduction of his and other artists' work. The result was the Engravers' Copyright Act (known as 'Hogarth's Act'), which became law on 25 June 1735 and was the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognize the authorial rights of an individual artist.[25]