William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode: 2, The Tête à Tête, c. 1743. The National Gallery, London
Dr David Bellingham, Course Director at Sotheby’s Institute, presents the 18th century context in Britain in which Hogarth became a satirical and social commentator. Printing became widespread, enabling literary manuscripts and oil paintings to be replicated and sold in increasing numbers at home and abroad. Novelists, poets and painters began to cross-reference one another, in the knowledge that their audiences would understand. Thus Henry Fielding in Tom Jones makes direct reference to the prints of Hogarth.
Hogarth’s paintings, like Fielding’s novels, could be described as a new genre of ‘comic history’, which is also explored in Tate’s current exhibition focusing on not only the ‘new spirit of individualism, but inequities of race and social status’ in both Britain and Europe.
Hogarth and Europe is at Tate Britain, 3 November 2021 – 20 March 2022.
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