DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2057#0087
HOGARTH. £7
have their friends, whom they incessantly
teach to call my women harlots, my Essay
on Beauty borrowed,* and my composition
and engraving contemptible.
" This so much disgusted me, that I
sometimes declared I would never paint
another portrait, and frequently refused
when applied to; for I found by mortify-
ing experience, that whoever would succeed
in this branch, must adopt the mode recom-
mended in one of Gay's fables,-)- and make
divinities of all who sit to him. Whether
or not this childish affectation will ever be
done away, is a doubtful question ; none of
those who have attempted to reform it have
* By both the artists and connoisseurs of his own day,
he was accused of having stoien the ideas contained In
his Essay from Lomazzo. Several prints which were
published in support of this opinion will be noticed.
t The fable here alluded to, is entitled, a Painter who ■
pleased every body and nobody,
" So very like a painter drew,
" That every eye the picture knew.—
" His honest pencil touch'd with truth,
" And mark'd the date of age and youth."
But see the consequence,—
have their friends, whom they incessantly
teach to call my women harlots, my Essay
on Beauty borrowed,* and my composition
and engraving contemptible.
" This so much disgusted me, that I
sometimes declared I would never paint
another portrait, and frequently refused
when applied to; for I found by mortify-
ing experience, that whoever would succeed
in this branch, must adopt the mode recom-
mended in one of Gay's fables,-)- and make
divinities of all who sit to him. Whether
or not this childish affectation will ever be
done away, is a doubtful question ; none of
those who have attempted to reform it have
* By both the artists and connoisseurs of his own day,
he was accused of having stoien the ideas contained In
his Essay from Lomazzo. Several prints which were
published in support of this opinion will be noticed.
t The fable here alluded to, is entitled, a Painter who ■
pleased every body and nobody,
" So very like a painter drew,
" That every eye the picture knew.—
" His honest pencil touch'd with truth,
" And mark'd the date of age and youth."
But see the consequence,—