Please let me introduce one of the western worlds most famous political cartoonists
William Hogarth.
This man worked largely in England during the early 18th century and produced oil paintings, etchings and pencil drawings AFAIK. These appeared as posters, portraits in stately homes and, as printing methods accelerated, in publications too. Back then cartoonists were known as
Pictorial Satirists and they were every bit as effective, if not more.
Im going to start with one of Hogarths most famous pieces, which came as a pair of prints, like much of the work he did. It appeared at a time when England was slipping into debauched, alcoholic depravity with increasing sales of cheap booze (indeed much of Hogarths work deals with moral depravity). Yet
'Gin Lane' had an immediate impact. During the same year it was published, parliament passed the Gin act which regulated the sale of alcohol.
Gin Lane
Gin Lane is arguably Hogarth's most famous work of engraved art. Along with its companion, Beer Street, Gin Lane addressed a very real problem in mid eighteenth century England -- the abuse of spirits by the working classes and the poor. In the right foreground an emaciated ballad singer has just passed away. His left hand still clutches his bottle. Even worse, a drunken woman is taking her snuff while her unattended baby falls to his death in front of the Gin Royal Tavern. Behind the wall a man and his dog fight for a bone. Further back, a man pawns his coat and saw and his wife her kitchen utensils for a few more drinks. The sour faced pawn broker is appropriately named, "S. Gripe". Both his wealthy home and clothes stand in direct contrast to the ruination around. Only pawn brokers, coffin makers and distillers profit in such a society. Various scenes of mayhem fill the street in the background. Murder and other forms of violence are anything but uncommon. Above a disrepaired building is about to crash to the ground and in the ruins of another house a man has committed suicide. Below him, the 'Kilman Distiller' has made a thriving trade by selling its gin to school children. Hogarth's Gin Lane had an immediate impact. During the same year it was published, parliament passed the Gin act which regulated the sale of alcohol.
The nightmare of Gin Lane (1750) is not simply one of endemic alcoholism brought about by the uncontrolled sale of cheap liquor. The disorder runs deeper than this; such anarchy is also the outcome of luxury, with the lower orders running riot as their social superiors turn away from their rightful roles as moral guardians.
And the
heaven to that
hell was:
Beer Street
Beer Street provides a revealing glimpse of an ideal society. 'Here', as Hogarth himself remarked, 'all is joyous and thriving. Industry and jollity go hand in hand.' In this well ordered scene, the various classes intermingle in a state of harmony, industry and leisure are properly balanced, prosperity is shared by all but the pawnbroker - who runs the only business to flourish amidst the squalor of Gin Lane. The Englishness of the scene is insistent. The drinkers are solid, straightforward working men - a butcher, a blacksmith and a paviour. In the first state of the print the blacksmith tackles a scrawny French sailor, whom he casually hoists into the air; in a later version of the scene, the foreigner is replaced by that most English of emblems, a shoulder of mutton. Good old English beer is extolled for its health-giving qualities and its contribution to the nation's superiority. The bullish nationalism which could conceive Beer Street as a model of ordered prosperity founded on the liberties of the free-born Englishman was troubled by a niggling pessimism, however.
But such condemnation of the working classes was rare. The main victims of Hogarths biting satire were of course the wealthy, frivolous, decadent, corrupt and morally bankrupt upper classes. Basically, those in power it didnt matter who, they all got it to some degree or other.
The Clergy in
The Sleepy Congregation
The Sleepy Congregation is one of Hogarth's most delightful comments upon the church. An old, nearsighted preacher delivers his sermon from his pulpit on high. The hourglass beside him has emptied, illustrating that his sermon has been going on far too long. From the standpoint of all those slumbering before him it is ironic that his subject from the Bible is, "Come unto me all ye that Labour and are Heavy Laden and I will give you Rest." Below the preacher sits the clerk whose attention is fixed on nothing resembling the sacred. The sleeping, attractive girl of his glare has fallen asleep reading the only passage of the Bible that interests her; "Of Matrimony." The majority of the men asleep in the pews are snoring. The only members of the congregation that are awake are two aged women whose conical hats give them the appearance of witches. About twenty-five years later Hogarth again returned to the them of a religious congregation in his engraving, Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism. Where the satire in The Sleepy Congregation is both gentle and humourous, the imagery in the later engraving focuses upon the destructiveness and even madness of religious worship and zeal. It is much less dangerous to be bored and sleepy than to be consumed by fire and brimstone.
The Art World in
Time Smoking a Picture
Time Smoking a Picture deals with art connoisseurs and their mislead enthusiasm for old master paintings of any quality or lack thereof, because of the popular notion that 'time' both improved and mellowed art. Hogarth's portrayal of time and his activities is less than flattering. He sits upon a statue he has utterly destroyed. The detached head, without a nose, wears a tortured expression. A severed hand points directly to time's ever darkening varnish. 'Time' meanwhile is viewing a painting which he blackens and obscures with the voluminous smoke from his pipe. He has also carelessly ripped a great hole in the canvas with his scythe. The quotation in Greek written on the upper part of the frame reads, "Time is not a great artist but weakens all he touches."
The Educational Establishment in
The Scholars.
For Hogarth, as for many others concerned by the direction in which the nation was headed, modern society was tainted by two corrosive diseases which threatened to poison public spirit and sow the seeds of moral and political decline. Both threats - financial speculation and parliamentary corruption - were at one and the same time symptoms and causes of luxury. Both, it was feared, loosened the bonds of duty which had allowed Britons a level of freedom, affluence and power unrivalled in continental Europe by transforming citizens committed to the common good into rapacious and unprincipled egotists.
The Judiciary in
The Bench
And so many others, which I might get round to putting up later. Here are some good links for those interested in finding out more about William Hogarth.
http://hogarth.althacker.com/index.php?main=galIndex
http://www.fortunecity.de/lindenpark/hundertwasser/517/webholks.html#Image
Worlds End