DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61480#0084
76
HOGARTH'S WORKS.
trying him before a tribunal, whose authority he did not acknowledge, and from the picture
having been in many respects altered after the critic saw it, some of the remarks become
unfair. To the frequency of these alterations we may attribute many of the errors : the
man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading principles on which
his work ought to be built, will not render it perfect by following the advice of his
friends. Though Messrs. Wilkes and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of
politics, and mangled her with a barbarity that can hardly be paralleled, except in the
history of her husband,—the artist retained his partiality ; which seems to have increased
in exact proportion to their abuse. The picture being thus contemplated through the
medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its imperfections were exaggerated.
The painted harlot of Babylon had not more opprobrious epithets from the first race of
reformers than the painted Sigismonda of Hogarth from the last race of patriots.
When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother redoubles her
caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour he had bestowed upon it, was
certain that the public were prejudiced, and requested, if his wife survived him, she
would not sell it for less than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity
to his wishes, but after her death the painting was purchased by Messrs. Boydell, and
exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious
and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc. may be generally conceived by the print. I am
much inclined to think, that if some of those who have been most severe in their cen-
sures, had consulted their own feelings, instead of depending upon connoisseurs, poor
Sigismonda would have been in higher estimation. It has been said that the first
sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time she was weeping over the corse of her
mother.
Hogarth once intended to have appealed from the critics' fiat to the world's opinion,
and employed Mr. Basire to make an engraving, which was begun, but set aside for
some other work, and never completed.
HOGARTH'S WORKS.
trying him before a tribunal, whose authority he did not acknowledge, and from the picture
having been in many respects altered after the critic saw it, some of the remarks become
unfair. To the frequency of these alterations we may attribute many of the errors : the
man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading principles on which
his work ought to be built, will not render it perfect by following the advice of his
friends. Though Messrs. Wilkes and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of
politics, and mangled her with a barbarity that can hardly be paralleled, except in the
history of her husband,—the artist retained his partiality ; which seems to have increased
in exact proportion to their abuse. The picture being thus contemplated through the
medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its imperfections were exaggerated.
The painted harlot of Babylon had not more opprobrious epithets from the first race of
reformers than the painted Sigismonda of Hogarth from the last race of patriots.
When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother redoubles her
caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour he had bestowed upon it, was
certain that the public were prejudiced, and requested, if his wife survived him, she
would not sell it for less than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity
to his wishes, but after her death the painting was purchased by Messrs. Boydell, and
exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious
and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc. may be generally conceived by the print. I am
much inclined to think, that if some of those who have been most severe in their cen-
sures, had consulted their own feelings, instead of depending upon connoisseurs, poor
Sigismonda would have been in higher estimation. It has been said that the first
sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time she was weeping over the corse of her
mother.
Hogarth once intended to have appealed from the critics' fiat to the world's opinion,
and employed Mr. Basire to make an engraving, which was begun, but set aside for
some other work, and never completed.