William Hogarth (British Artists)

by Matthew Craske (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $4.12

  The British Artists series provides accessible introductions to the work of major British artists and includes illustrations of important works worldwide. This fresh perspective of William Hogarth presents him as a figure who reinvented the whole idea of what it was to be an artist.

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.21

  This fresh and engaging perspective of William Hogarth (1697-1764) reveals him as a figure who reinvented the very idea of what it is to be an artist. Hogarth was the first artist to make his living as a humorist, brilliantly inventing a means of reproducing a wit for wide public consumption. He adapted literary satire as a graphic art form and invented the serial print. In his portraits, his representation of human character and its passions broke new ground, as did his depiction of disease and its effects on the body. His sympathy with the human predicament and natural tendency for philanthropy also surfaced in his art. Taking a thematic approach to this quintessentially British artist, Matthew Craske introduces the reader to Hogarth's varied artistic production, including his series, engravings, portraits, and such major paintings as A Rake's Progress. He brings to life an artist who produced works aimed at fostering self-improvement--works in which vice can ruin the aristocrat as swiftly as the harlot--but also works of great humor. We meet an artist emblematic of his day and time but also utterly innovative and long-sighted.