DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56731#0134
6i. WILLIAM HOGARTH: CLASSICAL ASPECTS OF HIS WORK
1. Sigismonda. Painted in-1759 for Sir Richard Grosvenor. Tate Gallery, London.
Sigismonda mourns over the heart of her murdered husband Guiscardo, which she holds in
a golden cup. The story was familiar to Englishmen from Dryden’s version of Boccaccio. The
Sigismonda picture is one of the rare cases where Hogarth attempted the grand Italian manner.
But this manner was chosen as a weapon in his war against the connoisseurs. The picture was
painted to rival another of Sigismonda which had been sold as a Correggio in 1758 for £400.
Hogarth’s eye had not deceived him, for this once celebrated picture is now recognized as the
work of the mawkish Francesco Furini (see a). Sir Richard Grosvenor declined to accept Hogarth’s
picture; the embittered painter then designed a subscription ticket for an engraving after it in
which he exposed the false values placed upon old Italian pictures by showing Time smoking
a picture (1761). The whole clique of critics turned against Hogarth’s experiment in the grand
manner. Horace Walpole attacked it in the most unbridled language; he declared that the picture
was no more “like Sigismonda than I to Hercules. . . . Hogarth’s performance was more ridiculous
than anything he had ever ridiculed.” And Reynolds, the champion of the grand manner, con-
demned Hogarth’s effort in his 14th Discourse: “He very imprudently, or rather presumptuously,
attempted the great historical style, for which previous habits had by no means prepared him. . . .
It is to be regretted, that any part of the life of such a genius should be fruitlessly employed.”
a. F. Furini (c. 1600-46). Sigismonda. Sold at Christie’s March 31st, 1939.
2. “Marriage a la Mode.” Scene IV. The whole series of six pictures was completed in 1744.
Tate Gallery, London.
The “Marriage a la Mode” series is a biting satire on the morals of society. Hogarth called
it “ a Variety of Modern Occurrences in High-Life.” The plot is simple : an impoverished nobleman
marries his son to a rich heiress; the husband pursues his own pleasures and his wife succumbs
to temptations; “a foregone sequel and a tragic issue” (Dobson). The fourth picture shows the
morning levee of the countess. A barber is curling her hair while she is absorbed by “ Silvertongue”,
the young lawyer lying on the settee. They are not listening to the performance of an Italian
singer and a German flute-player in the left half of the room. But the lover is inviting the countess
to a masquerade by handing her an admission ticket, and at the same time pointing, with a gesture
of encouragement, to a screen on which a masquerade is painted. The consequences are foretold
by the accessories, the trifles on the floor and the pictures on the walls. These are borrowed from
antiquity, or copied after classical paintings. This running commentary on Hogarth’s scene from
everyday life is given in an “international” language which was subtle enough “that there may not
be”—in Hogarth’s own words—“the least Objection to the Decency or Elegancy of the whole
Work.” At Mr. Silvertongue’s feet is an ancient figure of Actaeon. A negro page touches its
horns significantly, and the little figure is turned towards the “horned” husband, who pensively
sips his chocolate at the other side of the room. Next to the Actaeon lies a dish with the represen-
tation of Leda and the Swan by Giulio Romano, and various escapades of Jupiter by Correggio
and Michelangelo, together with the story of Lot and his daughters, carry on the erotic allusions.
5. One of the two explanatory prints from Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty, 1753.
In his book Hogarth aimed at leading people “to acquire a true idea of the word Taste.”
A winding line twisted round a cone, represented in the top centre of the plate as No. 26, is
according to him the only precise “line of Beauty and Grace.” This is the central principle of his
theory. Hogarth here harks back to an old Italian conception which reached him through Richard
Haydocke’s translation (1598) of Paolo Lomazzo’s Tratatto de la Pittura (1584) (see 41, 2). The
latter reports that Michelangelo advised a pupil “that he should always make a figure pyramidal,
serpentlike, and multiplied by one, two and three.” Hogarth expands Michelangelo’s precept in
every possible direction, as can be seen from the diagrams in the framework of his print. These
enclose a statuary’s yard the conception of which had come to Hogarth from the description in
Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates’ visit to the yard of the sculptor Clito. In the centre stands the
Medicean Venus, before her the Belvedere Torso, in the background Laocoon, to the left the
Antinous near the base of the Farnese Hercules, while on the right appears the Apollo Belvedere.
These statues best display the ideal line of Beauty. The “easy sway” of the Antinous is contrasted
with “the stiff and straight figure of the dancing master”, and “the uniform outlines of the muscles
in the figures taken from Albert Duerer’s book of proportions” (No. 55 on the print) to the
Belvedere Torso. Hogarth evidently felt that he had to apologize for the ample use of classical
examples. “We have all along had recourse chiefly to the works of the ancients, not because the
moderns have not produced some as excellent; but because the works of the former are more
generally known.” Hogarth, who ridiculed constantly the blind veneration of the ancients and
the old masters, based his ideas about art on Italian thought, and proved them with classical
examples.
a
1. Sigismonda. Painted in-1759 for Sir Richard Grosvenor. Tate Gallery, London.
Sigismonda mourns over the heart of her murdered husband Guiscardo, which she holds in
a golden cup. The story was familiar to Englishmen from Dryden’s version of Boccaccio. The
Sigismonda picture is one of the rare cases where Hogarth attempted the grand Italian manner.
But this manner was chosen as a weapon in his war against the connoisseurs. The picture was
painted to rival another of Sigismonda which had been sold as a Correggio in 1758 for £400.
Hogarth’s eye had not deceived him, for this once celebrated picture is now recognized as the
work of the mawkish Francesco Furini (see a). Sir Richard Grosvenor declined to accept Hogarth’s
picture; the embittered painter then designed a subscription ticket for an engraving after it in
which he exposed the false values placed upon old Italian pictures by showing Time smoking
a picture (1761). The whole clique of critics turned against Hogarth’s experiment in the grand
manner. Horace Walpole attacked it in the most unbridled language; he declared that the picture
was no more “like Sigismonda than I to Hercules. . . . Hogarth’s performance was more ridiculous
than anything he had ever ridiculed.” And Reynolds, the champion of the grand manner, con-
demned Hogarth’s effort in his 14th Discourse: “He very imprudently, or rather presumptuously,
attempted the great historical style, for which previous habits had by no means prepared him. . . .
It is to be regretted, that any part of the life of such a genius should be fruitlessly employed.”
a. F. Furini (c. 1600-46). Sigismonda. Sold at Christie’s March 31st, 1939.
2. “Marriage a la Mode.” Scene IV. The whole series of six pictures was completed in 1744.
Tate Gallery, London.
The “Marriage a la Mode” series is a biting satire on the morals of society. Hogarth called
it “ a Variety of Modern Occurrences in High-Life.” The plot is simple : an impoverished nobleman
marries his son to a rich heiress; the husband pursues his own pleasures and his wife succumbs
to temptations; “a foregone sequel and a tragic issue” (Dobson). The fourth picture shows the
morning levee of the countess. A barber is curling her hair while she is absorbed by “ Silvertongue”,
the young lawyer lying on the settee. They are not listening to the performance of an Italian
singer and a German flute-player in the left half of the room. But the lover is inviting the countess
to a masquerade by handing her an admission ticket, and at the same time pointing, with a gesture
of encouragement, to a screen on which a masquerade is painted. The consequences are foretold
by the accessories, the trifles on the floor and the pictures on the walls. These are borrowed from
antiquity, or copied after classical paintings. This running commentary on Hogarth’s scene from
everyday life is given in an “international” language which was subtle enough “that there may not
be”—in Hogarth’s own words—“the least Objection to the Decency or Elegancy of the whole
Work.” At Mr. Silvertongue’s feet is an ancient figure of Actaeon. A negro page touches its
horns significantly, and the little figure is turned towards the “horned” husband, who pensively
sips his chocolate at the other side of the room. Next to the Actaeon lies a dish with the represen-
tation of Leda and the Swan by Giulio Romano, and various escapades of Jupiter by Correggio
and Michelangelo, together with the story of Lot and his daughters, carry on the erotic allusions.
5. One of the two explanatory prints from Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty, 1753.
In his book Hogarth aimed at leading people “to acquire a true idea of the word Taste.”
A winding line twisted round a cone, represented in the top centre of the plate as No. 26, is
according to him the only precise “line of Beauty and Grace.” This is the central principle of his
theory. Hogarth here harks back to an old Italian conception which reached him through Richard
Haydocke’s translation (1598) of Paolo Lomazzo’s Tratatto de la Pittura (1584) (see 41, 2). The
latter reports that Michelangelo advised a pupil “that he should always make a figure pyramidal,
serpentlike, and multiplied by one, two and three.” Hogarth expands Michelangelo’s precept in
every possible direction, as can be seen from the diagrams in the framework of his print. These
enclose a statuary’s yard the conception of which had come to Hogarth from the description in
Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates’ visit to the yard of the sculptor Clito. In the centre stands the
Medicean Venus, before her the Belvedere Torso, in the background Laocoon, to the left the
Antinous near the base of the Farnese Hercules, while on the right appears the Apollo Belvedere.
These statues best display the ideal line of Beauty. The “easy sway” of the Antinous is contrasted
with “the stiff and straight figure of the dancing master”, and “the uniform outlines of the muscles
in the figures taken from Albert Duerer’s book of proportions” (No. 55 on the print) to the
Belvedere Torso. Hogarth evidently felt that he had to apologize for the ample use of classical
examples. “We have all along had recourse chiefly to the works of the ancients, not because the
moderns have not produced some as excellent; but because the works of the former are more
generally known.” Hogarth, who ridiculed constantly the blind veneration of the ancients and
the old masters, based his ideas about art on Italian thought, and proved them with classical
examples.
a