William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) was an English painter and printmaker from the 18th century whom, in many ways, revolutionized the business of art making. Although he was a successful portrait painter, with many commissions from wealthy aristocrats and from the emerging merchant class, he was also a part of the circle of artists and writers who were commentators on the social conditions of the time. In order to reach a larger, less elite audience, Hogarth needed a vehicle for communication that was less expensive, and easily marketed. He was one of the earliest and most successful of “reproductive print makers” whose engravings after their own paintings launched the popularity of these works with the working and middle classes in England, and eventually spread to the continent of Europe. (…)
A Harlot’s Progress was published in 1732 and is a series of 6 engravings that visually charts the life of a young woman from the countryside, Moll Hackabout, her fate representing that of many young country girls who arrived in the metropolis of London, and were then preyed upon by unscrupulous characters who exploited their youth and naiveté. Thus, Moll is quickly swallowed up in a world of prostitution.
In the first scene, an old woman praises the beauty of Moll and suggests a profitable occupation. A gentleman is shown towards the back of the image. In the second image she is with two lovers: a mistress, in the third she has become a prostitute as well as arrested, she is beating hemp in Bridewell Prison in the fourth. In the fifth scene she is dying from venereal disease, and she is dead at age 23 in the last.
The success of this series led Hogarth to quickly create a sequel published in 1835, A Rake’s Progress, charting the downfall of a young heir who squanders his inheritance, falls into poverty, and ultimately descends into madness.
Hogarth’s meticulously detailed compositions capture the London of his day. The clothing appropriate to each character’s station, the conveyances that they used to move about, the buildings, shop signs, and the general character of the streets themselves are all based upon his own experience of life in London in that era. Both public and private spaces reflect the way that Englishmen of every class lived in the urban environment at that time, and the challenges of life in the 18th century for rich and poor alike.
Source: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and Saint Louis Art Museum.
