Hogarth

William Hogarth, (10 November, 1697 – 26 October, 1764).
Hogarth, the moralist, satirist, social commentator, printmaker and cartoonist, is credited as one of the pioneers of Western sequential art. Arguably one of the most famous series of paintings that became a hugely popular set of prints, The Rake's Progress, is one of the best examples of Hogarth's moralising social commentary.







The series of images tells the story of a young man who squanders the fortune that is left to him, contracts syphillis and eventually dies in Bedlam. This type of work by no means describes all of Hogarth's output he was also a reputed portrait painter and much of his work sat squarely within the conventions of painting, however he appears to be a product of his time, the Age of Enlightenment. Hogarth's visual commentary and cautionary image making mark an attitude prevalent amongst the educated classes in early 18th century Britain, France and Germany, that reason was all.
So Hogarth's relationship to the development of Illustration describes types of practice that have now become commonplace, social commentary and documentary, satire and cartooning. His hungry assimilation of everything that he saw around him, his ability to digest and synthesize visual and literal information and 'interpret' this into imagery describe a kind of Illustrative attitude. It is interesting to note that both Hogarth and Blake began life as engravers.



A possible successor to Hogarth was George Cruikshank, (27 September, 1792 – 1 February, 1878), a caricaturist, social satirist and book Illustrator. Hogarth and the Age of Enlightenment's legacy was a tradition of dissent and moral fortitude. Cruikshank continued to lambast the morally dubious, frequenters of Gin Palaces and houses of ill repute. The Romantics, in stark contrast to their reasonable, forebears were ardent patrons of the aforementioned dens of iniquity.