Hogarth

Hogarth's early print The South Sea Scheme is about the disastrous stock market crash of 1720, where many English people lost a great deal of money. In the bottom left corner, he shows Protestant, Catholic and Jewish figures gambling, while in the middle there is a huge merry-go-round like machine, which people are getting on to ride.

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A D V E R T I S E M E N T

At the top is a goat, written below which is "Who'l Ride" and this shows the stupidity of people in following the crowd in buying South Sea company stock, a company which spent more time issuing stock than actually producing anything. The people are scattered around the picture with a real sense of disorder, which represented the confusion; "reflecting the actual confusion that preceded and followed the bursting of the South Sea Bubble." (Dabydeen 1987: 21) The progress of the well dressed people towards the ride in the middle shows how foolish some people could be, which is not entirely their own fault.

Hogarth's series A Harlot's Progress not only shows the costumes, and interior decoration of eighteenth century England, but it gives an insight into English culture. The series depicts the life story of a woman from the countryside who goes to the city in search of work, but eventually turns to prostitution, is arrested and dies.

Hogarth uses ordinary people as the characters in his paintings, rather than use stories from myths or legends. The style of dress and types of people would have been known to the people who saw his prints at the time. The sometimes cruel society is shown in these prints, for the woman is seen in the first print in such fine dress, with probably good intentions, which contrasts to her miserable future in the next prints. It showed the "hard, uncompassionate morality of the age the painter lived in." (33.1911encyclopedia.org) Hogarth followed this very successful series with another tragic story with a male character this time.

The series A Rake's Progress also shows the lifestyles of the people of England during Hogarth's lifetime. The series of paintings shows a young man who at the beginning of the series is youthful and happy, and continues through his life a downfall which ends with him being committed to the Bedlam asylum. Hogarth is obviously trying to give a lesson in morals, to show the downward path which will occur if people choose to go down a certain road. By doing so, he shows many of the lifestyles and culture of people at the time.