Hogarth: A Life and a World

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Hogarth: A Life and a World Details

Amazon.com Review Combining in-depth history with perceptive explication of the references encoded in William Hogarth's images, Jenny Uglow enables modern readers to fully understand the society that shaped the art of William Hogarth (1697-1764). Hugely popular engravings such as A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-La-Mode commented on the tumultuous changes sweeping through 18th-century English society; Hogarth was appreciated as a moralist as much as a painter. Uglow colorfully recreates a vanished world, as well as the prickly nature of a man who revolutionized the role and the status of British artists. Read more From Library Journal This life and times of William Hogarth provides the reader with a scholarly and readable one-volume biography of a major figure in English art. Although it does not replace the classic works of Ronald Paulson (e.g., Hogarth, Vol. 1: The Modern Moral Subject, 1697-1732, Rutgers Univ., 1991), it nevertheless examines Hogarth's life thoroughly and gives a full discussion of his work. The individual works of art are explained in great detail within the context of Hogarth's society; particularly interesting is the chapter "Factions and Elections," which demonstrates the background to the famous artworks on British parliamentary elections. The work has been carefully researched, and the insights are illuminating. Fascinating and very rewarding reading for both art and social historians of England, this volume is recommended for every public and academic library.?Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, Ct.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From Kirkus Reviews Striving for the lively ``composed variety'' that Hogarth said characterized his own work, this latest biography fixes the engraver and painter in his rich 18th-century milieu. Uglow, biographer of Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot (1987), joins the long procession of Hogarth chroniclers and critics, from the contemporary anecdotes of Hogarth's fellow artist George Vertue to the authoritative three-volume opus of art historian Ronald Paulson. William Hogarth was 18th-century Britain's defining genius, a native artist who combined realism with caricature in representing his times. Steeped in the artist and the era alike, Uglow approaches her subject with enthusiasm and affection, though she enjoys explicating his works more than his character. Hogarth's pugnacious ambition propelled him from a humble, dull apprenticeship as a silver engraver to the most popular printmaker of his day and a turbulent life as an independent artist. His ambition endeared him to the likes of Fielding and David Garrick, but it also lost him placement as a painter in the Hanoverian court and among his more classical peers. Uglow's familiar portrait of this careerist of genius is freely embellished throughout with digressions into the environment and events that inspired him, including the multitudinous London of his ``modern moral subjects,'' the progresses of his harlot and rake; the Foundling Hospital and his groundbreaking portrait of its founder, Captain Thomas Coram; the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745; and the contentious General Election of 1754, wonderfully skewered in Hogarth's Election series. Although he may have overreached himself in later years with his tendentious treatise, The Analysis of Beauty, and his untaken bid at Old Mastery, Sigismonda, he was always a lively and entertaining figure, always bustling and skirmishing with the artistic establishment. Hogarth and his century were never dull, nor is Uglow's expansive, diverting book. (200 b&w illustrations, 14 color plates, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Read more Review Uglow's book is rightly subtitled A Life and a World. Hogarth's art can be elusive to someone unfamiliar with the events to which he referred and the people he portrayed.... Unglow makes Hogarth's dated allusions comprehensible. -- The New York Times Book Review, Michael Kimmelman Read more

Reviews

One of the world's great bios--up there with Bate's takes on Johnson and Keats and Ellman's Joyce and Wilde. Just get it, revel in it, come to understand the absolute brilliance of Hogarth, the rollicking times, the politics (made palpable), the streets of London and the riotous riot that was The Big Smoke before it was The Big Smoke. Monumental, enjoyable as hell, only thing is it's a bit hard to hold up in bed. Can't put it down!!!! Love it.

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