Hogarth, WILLIAM, a celebrated painter, engraver, and pictorial satirist, born in Bartholomew Close, London, on the 10th November 1697, served his apprenticeship to a silversmith named Ellis Gamble, in Cranbourne Alley, Leicester Fields, and studied art at Sir James Thornhill's school in
James Street, Covent Garden. About 1720 he set up for himself. His first employment was to engrave coats of arms, crests, shop-bills, &c., after which he began to design plates for the booksellers, the chief of which are the illustrations to Gray's edition of Hudibras (1726). He next tried his hand at portrait-painting, and soon had ample employment for what are called 'conversation pieces,' but he never cared greatly for this branch of art. In March 1729 he married clandestinely the daughter of Sir James Thornhill, and shortly afterwards began to display his extraordinary faculty for depicting the vices and follies of his time. In 1730-31 he painted 'A Harlot's Progress,' a series of six pictures which, like many of his other works, was engraved by himself. It was published in April 1732. The 'Harlot's Progress' was followed by other moral histories and satiric delineations, such as 'A Midnight Modern Conversation' (1734), 'Southwark Fair' (1735), 'A Rake's Progress' (1735), 'The Distressed Poet' (1736), 'The Four Times of the Day,' and the 'Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn' (1738). Concurrently with these Hogarth made more than one attempt to compete with the popular history-painters of his day, and with far less success produced the large canvases still in St Bartholomew's Hospital—the 'Pool of Bethesda' and the 'Good Samaritan,' both executed in 1736; and he also produced several portraits. The series of graphic satires was, however, continued by the 'Enraged Musician' (1741) and the famous 'Marriage à la Mode' (his masterpiece), six pictures now in the National Gallery, and engraved by various hands in 1745. 'Industry and Idleness,' twelve plates, followed these in 1747; 'Calais Gate, or O the Roast Beef of Old England!' (1749) came next, and in 1750 the fine plate known familiarly as the 'March to Finchley.' The minor plates of 'Beer Street' and 'Gin Lane' and the set called 'The Progress of Cruelty' belong to 1751. In 1752 he published the Analysis of Beauty, a treatise containing many shrewd remarks, but confused and illiterate in its style. It had only a succès d'estime. After this he returned to his graver, producing (with the aid of Grignon and others) the four prints of the 'Election Series' (1755-58), the 'Cockpit' (1759), and other pieces. In 1757 he was appointed sergeant-painter to the king. In 1762-63 an unhappy excursion into politics involved him in a miserable quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, the result of which, on his side, was the well-known portraits of Wilkes, and of Churchill as a bear ('The Bruiser'). By this time his health was failing. He composed a tail-piece to his works, 'Finis, or the Bathos,' March 1764; and in October of the same year died at his house in Leicester Fields. He was buried in Chiswick churchyard, under an epitaph by Garrick. Not far off still stands the little villa which he long occupied as a summer residence.
There are portraits of Hogarth by himself in the National and National Portrait Galleries, and most of his pictures, which now enjoy a much higher repute for technique than formerly, are preserved in public or private collections in Britain. His powers of invention and combination were extraordinary; and as a humorist and social satirist with the pencil he has never been surpassed. There can be no doubt also that he genuinely desired to assist by his work in the reformation of manners.
His prints can be studied in the collections of Boydell (1790), or of Baldwin and Cradock (1820-22). Biographical studies of him have been published by G. A. Sala (1866) and the present writer (1889-92). The best commentaries on his engravings are to be found in John Ireland's Hogarth Illustrated (1791-98); Lichtenberg's Ausführliche Erklärung (revised edition, 1850-53); Nichols and Steevens' Genuine Works (1808-17); and F. G. Stephens' Catalogue of the Satirical Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, vols. ii.-iv.