In today’s fast paced illustration world, it may be easy to forget the career’s humble beginnings in religious commissions and portrait painting. I’m here to calibrate the perspective on modern illustration by visiting an old, yet hopefully not overlooked, William Hogarth.
William Hogarth was a British painter, engraver, pictorial satirist and cartoonist in the late 1600s and early 1700s. While this time fame and job description sound drab and dull, Hogarth is anything but. He is the father of the political cartoon and sequential illustration. While some of his works require viewing through the lens of the past era, the messages have clearly stood the test of time, and are just as sharp today as ever.
One of his most famous works is an eight part series called A Rake’s Progress. We meet Tom Rakewell as his father has just died and thus inherits a great fortune, which he wastes on luxurious living, and spoiler alert, he ends up Bedlam mental asylum. This first frame features him dumping his pregnant fiancée while being measured for a suit by mourning servants. Not you’re average set of paintings.
Hogarth was trained as an engraver in his youth, which naturally lead into his printed works. The piece I am using to exemplify this is called Satire on False Perspective. The inscription at the bottom clearly states the intent of the plate:
“Whoever makes a DESIGN without the Knowledge of PERSPECTIVE will be liable to such Absurdities as are shewn in this Frontifpiece”
At a casual glance it appears to be a scene of a river’s side, but with any sort of contemplation, one realizes there is not one but several perspective issues with the piece. Aside from the numerous flaws in scale, there are many different horizon lines. He’s poking fun at the careless mistakes that have been taught from master paintings instead of the mathematical reasoning behind perspective.
While this isn’t the appropriate venue for a Hogarth biography, there are places that are, and if any of this has sparked your interest, educate yourself further!
The Hogarth Exhibition at Tate Britain
Engravings and Descriptions of Hogarth’s Works, including A Rake’s Progress
A Video for Those Who Made It to the End, But Have Had Enough Reading
