A Rake's Progress

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William Hogarth: A Rake's Progress , image 8 (oil on canvas; Sir John Soane's Museum, London). Detail: The libertine and his grieving ex-girlfriend in the madhouse.

A Rake's Progress is a series of paintings and engravings by the English artist William Hogarth , created between 1733 and 1735. The eight pictures in the cycle show the descent and fall of Tom Rakewell, who rich after his death but his extremely stingy father leads a dissolute life in London and squanders his legacy in brothels and gambling dens. As a result of his extravagant and lavish lifestyle, the negative hero ends up in a guilty prison and ultimately ends up in a madhouse.

The title is well chosen for the series of pictures, because the word “rake” stands for “rake in (money)”, as in the case of the deceased father, and for a bon vivant and libertine, as in the case of the immoral son.

After A Harlot's Progress , A Rake's Progress is Hogarth's second cycle, which illuminates the moral shortcomings of English society in the 18th century. The series was extremely popular with audiences; the engravings quickly spread across Europe. In Germany, they were extensively commented on in the late 18th century by the Anglophile enlightener Georg Christoph Lichtenberg .

In order to prevent forgeries and pirated prints , the artist obtained the Engraver's Act , a copyright also known as the Hogarth Act , shortly before the specially delayed delivery of the copperplate version of his new work .

background

Personal

Hogarth's origins are one of the keys to his work. His father Richard was a teacher and unsuccessful writer of Latin textbooks; the family was poor. When William was ten years old, his father's London coffeehouse , which was only supposed to be spoken in Latin, went bankrupt. As a debtor, Richard Hogarth was sent to Fleet Prison in late 1707 , where debtors were then imprisoned until they could pay their debts. Not until 1712 was he released through an amnesty, but was a failed existence and died in 1718 a broken man. When William Hogarth later achieved success as an artist, he paid great attention to the commercial aspect of the distribution of his works of art - especially the engravings. The sad experiences of the young Hogarth with his father in Fleet Prison may also have had an influence on the design of the seventh scene of the rake series, which takes place in a guilty prison .

Intermediality

The mass distribution of printed works, whether as books or pictures, was accelerated in England at the beginning of the 18th century, where the first modern novels , such as those of the popular writer Henry Fielding , appeared a little later . This increasing publicity of works of art led to a specific intermediality between literature, theater and the traditional genres of the visual arts.

At the beginning of the century, the first moralizing weeklies appeared in England with Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's Tatler and Spectator . Cheaply produced figurative satires, which often commented on certain political events, existed in England before the 18th century, but in Hogarth's time the market was flooded with an abundance of such sheets, most of which appeared as single-sheet prints. Since 1728, John Gay's moralistic-satirical stage work The Beggar's Opera had a sensational success in London as a popular alternative to Italian opera. With his works, Hogarth wanted to stand out from the multitude of second-rate caricaturists and in his series of images "treat substances like a writer: my picture is my stage, and men and women are my actors who play a silent game through their actions and facial expressions" he writes in his handwritten autobiographical notes . It is to his credit that, as an artist, like literary satire in the English 18th century, he allowed a moral-satirical commentary to flow into the visual language beyond the pure representation of social conditions, to which numerous meaningful secondary motifs contribute.

The "modern moral issue"

A Rake's Progress is Hogarth's second cycle of modern moral subjects after A Harlot's Progress (the “career of a prostitute”) from 1732. Such topics were relatively new for the art of the time, which was still strongly influenced by religious and mythological imagery was shaped, even if there were popular genre scenes from the rural milieu in Holland before Hogarth , since the 17th century morality singers gave their moralizing horror stories with picture and music accompaniment and the genre of the conversation piece , which was mainly in the Netherlands , was popular in France and England, not only portrayed aristocratic families, but also portrayed groups of people from the bourgeoisie. On the one hand, Hogarth's subjects take up profane contemporary themes, especially the lowlands and abysses of modern life, on the other hand, he is based on formal traditions of high art. To this day it is controversial whether he wanted to ennoble genre art or, conversely, make high art ridiculous. Compared to the older parody , which pays its respects to the parodied, he already appears as a self-confident parodist who rises above the parodied.

Hogarth's series of images look at the social conditions and moral shortcomings of English society in the 18th century from a satirical and sarcastic perspective. Although there were a few forerunners with moral statements in other European countries, for example in Italy, as early as the 16th and 17th centuries, these did not come close to the quality of Hogarth's representations. Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress describes the story of a country girl who succumbs to prostitution in the city of London and dies miserably after her initial success as a whore in her lifestyle. The protagonist Moll or Mary Hackabout is a kind of female counterpart to the negative hero Tom Rakewell from A Rake's Progress , where the content of Hogarth's first “modern moral subject” is taken up, further developed and transferred to the social failure of an immoral male person.

Influences from literature and religious art

The word “progress” in the chosen title, the imagery used and the structure of the first Hogarth cycles parody to a large extent John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678–1684), at that time the most widely read book in England. While the Baptist preacher Bunyan in his religious book of edification the pilgrimage of "Christian" (ie a "Christian"), on whom a heavy burden, namely sin, rests, from the "city of destruction" (the earthly world) to the heavenly city of Zion (i.e. for blessed eternity in heaven), Hogarth's rake series is about the deliberate ironic reversal of this morally exemplary way of life, which for the unchristian and sinfully acting negative hero Tom Rakewell ends in the earthly guilty prison and madhouse. The satirical view of immoral life and its detailed rendering reflects above all the style of Hogarth's literary contemporaries such as Jonathan Swift , Alexander Pope or John Gay . Plays like Henry Fielding's comedy The Temple Beau (1730), which depicts the dissolute life of a young law student, may also have had an impact on A Rake's Progress . According to Jarno Jessen , Hogarth was mainly influenced by the drastic literary satires of his time, which were not for the faint-hearted:

“Hogarth needs the drums and kettledrum for his orchestra because he is convinced that he has a less sensitive auditorium in front of him. If he also uses the flute in the contrasting figure of Sarah Young, he pays his toll on the time that slipped from the party-critical mood of the Pope era into the pampering of Richardson's heart , and it sometimes booms like the noise of colportage . "

In addition, by comparing motifs it can be demonstrated that in his secular depictions Hogarth often adhered to pictorial schemes that artists of bygone eras actually developed for religious art. Often borrowings from well-known motifs from Christian iconography can be found in his pictures , which he places in profane contexts in his works with a certain visual wit. In A Rake's Progress these are mainly motifs from the Passion of Christ. Contemporary viewers could understand this symbolism either traditionally as a reference to the divine miracle in contrast to the lowlands of human existence or, on the contrary, as a concealment of reality and a shallow promise of happiness. Because, according to Ronald Paulson, Hogarth was close to deism , which contrasted the belief in revelation with reason, the latter interpretation is more likely to apply. Pictures in the picture, as they often hang on the wall in his scenes, show how exactly Hogarth was familiar with the works of old masters.

The clear lines of the engraving enabled him to “play” more intensely with emblems and symbols from traditional art, which he knew well, and at the same time with written texts (in the picture and below), which is why Charles Lamb designed the artist's graphics with books compared and was of the opinion that the engravings, because they had the suggestive power of words, above all had to be "read" and not just looked at. In contrast to the symbols of the vanitas symbolism, which are supposed to lead away from what is actually seen and have something naive or sarcastic in Hogarth's allusions, reality opens up for him through the search for traces and the gift of combination. Peter Wagner also refers to the ambiguous relationship between image and word in Hogarth and is inclined to describe the artist's works as “icon texts”. When working in oil, on the other hand, Hogarth had to concentrate primarily on the play of light and color, which was occasionally at the expense of smaller satirical details, which alone enrich the copper engravings that were created later.

Emergence

A contemporary report by George Vertue (1684–1756) comments on the emergence of the Harlot series at the beginning of the 1730s: Hogarth was then painting a picture of a pretty prostitute who gets out of bed at noon to have breakfast when he is in encouraged his studio to create more pictures on the subject and to depict the entire life of a prostitute. This resulted in the creation of a total of six scenes, which turned out to be bestsellers in their copper engraving version, so that the artist felt encouraged to tackle further series of pictures with moralsatirical content. For A Rake's Progress , Hogarth even came up with two more scenes. Between 1732 and 1734 he initially created eight paintings, which are now exhibited together with the four paintings from the later Election series in a separate small room at Sir John Soane's Museum , London. After these eight paintings, Hogarth engraved the copperplate versions that were more important to him in 1734–35, with the French engraver Louis Gérard Scotin helping him with the execution of image 2, which is the only one to reproduce the associated oil painting in the wrong direction.

Subscription and Distribution

Hogarth started planning A Rake's Progress soon after the (financially) huge success of A Harlot's Progress . The relatively small-format paintings served as the basis for the production of the copperplate engravings, the successful sale of which was Hogarth's real goal. On December 22, 1733, the subscription offer was published in London newspapers - eight prints for one and a half guineas . For all buyers of the copperplate version, the artist etched the sheet The Laughing Audience as a subscription receipt , which represents the audience's different reactions to a comedy and makes it clear that, in Hogarth's opinion, the life of rake should be viewed from a humorous theatrical perspective.

Hogarth completed the paintings around the middle of 1734, but had already started working on the engravings before that. To prevent other printers from selling cheaper copies of his new work already made by pirates, as had happened at A Harlot's Progress , Hogarth, together with some artist colleagues, passed the Engravers' Copyright Act ( Hogarth Act , a “copyright law for engravers “) And submit to Parliament. Only after the new copyright law came into effect on June 25, 1735, A Rake's Progress was delivered to its subscription customers. Without the pre-order, the series cost two guineas. However, Hogarth tried to serve less affluent customers: in mid-August he published a more affordable series of scaled-down prints of the cycle, copied by Thomas Bakewell, for two shillings and six pence.

The pictures

The oil paintings as the basis of the copper engravings

The eight original paintings, which were executed in a rather small format of 62.2 by 74.9 cm for oil paintings with many figures, are now in Sir John Soane's Museum in London. They served as the basis for the copper engravings, which were made by Hogarth in a format of around 32 by 39 cm from these oil paintings, whereby - with the exception of the second scene - the engravings reproduce most of the motifs in a reversed view.

The copperplate engravings based on the oil paintings resulted in a reversal of the sides, which did not always consistently ensure that the individual motifs were correctly displayed. The original is not reflected in image 2 because the wrong position of the violin would have been inappropriate in this context. In Figure 8, however, it is plausible that the madman is playing his violin wrong. However, details have sometimes been adjusted, such as the nib in Figure 6, which is held in the right hand in both versions. Because the copperplate engravings are better known than the paintings and also show some additional motifs that cannot be seen in the oil paintings, it is primarily the engraving version that the following interpretation refers to.

Lichtenberg's comments

From a commercial point of view, too, Hogarth's copperplate engravings were much more important than the paintings because of their wide distribution. The way they were known throughout Europe was expressed in the detailed explanation of the Hogarthic copperplate engravings by the famous Anglophile physicist and enlightener Georg Christoph Lichtenberg , who had acquired the original engravings from Hogarth's widow during one of his stays in London in the 1770s.

During his stays in England, Lichtenberg was impressed by the successful combination of natural science and engineering and, as a physicist, campaigned for the upgrading of the experiment , which is related to his commitment to artists and showmen: The explanation of tricks of all kinds freed them from Prejudice that they are just sensational. In Hogarth he noticed a turn to reality, which he appreciated in British empiricism , and he also liked the satirical tendency of the engravings.

With these convictions, Lichtenberg explained Hogarth's pictorial representations. Medical and scientific remarks sometimes give the impression that he is commenting on show experiments (as quoted here on Figure 3: "Laws of Gravity", on Figure 7: "Disturbance of the capillary system", "How to give iron polarity.") . Furthermore, he often alludes ironically to biblical texts in his comments, as Hogarth did in his pictures. In the historical context of the Enlightenment , this had considerable success. His Hogarth commentaries continued to be reprinted in the 19th and 20th centuries and were enthusiastically consumed by a German readership. Relevant quotes from Lichtenberg's contemporary commentaries therefore accompany the following remarks. Page references such as “right” or “left” are based on the better-known copper engraving version, not on the reversed oil painting version.

sequence

Image 1: The young heir takes over the property of the old curmudgeon

Oil painting version of the first scene
Image 1 as a copper engraving

Original title: The Young Heir Takes Possession Of The Miser's Effects

After the death of his rich father, Tom Rakewell is at the beginning of a lavish life. The name Rakewell is a play on words: English to rake in (money) means "(money) rake in", connected with the adjective well (gut), which refers both to the father's financial virtue and, in a second meaning ( a rake  - a libertine, bon vivant and lotter boy) should point out the lack of moral attitude of the son. Lichtenberg says about the choice of name:

"In English, it would be difficult to a family name invent that all this just as said, and that is not necessary in a country where it is the real are so many to express this relationship between father and son. They are easy to find in all three stands. In the Ora-et-labora class as well as in that of Ora et non labora (provided that he is allowed to marry) and that of Neque ora neque labora . In each one you will easily find some Et cetera II who chased through the throat and the like what Et cetera I has laboriously piled up. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

It should be mentioned, however, that Hogarth originally intended to name his negative hero "Ramble Gripe", as can be seen from the initials "RG" on one of the boxes in scene 1, but because numerous pirated copies had adopted this name and used it in advertisements he ultimately named "Tom Rakewell" for his protagonist.

In scene 1 Tom has just taken over his father's house and has a suit measured for him. A notary or procurator works on documents, but also secretly steals some coins. Sarah Young, the crying and visibly pregnant former lover of Rake, who holds a wedding ring in her hand, and her mother are standing at the door. She has Tom's love letters to Sarah in her hand and, pointing to Sarah's stomach, indignantly rejects Tom's offer of a handful of coins with which he wants to buy himself free from the promise of marriage. Recently there has even been speculation as to whether the young man might not have been married to Sarah.

Chests and cupboards in the room have been opened and ransacked, contracts and other papers from Tom's late father are carelessly thrown away on the floor. A servant nails black cloth to the wall, and pieces of gold that had been hidden there fall out of a gap behind a ceiling molding.

The old man is identified as curmudgeon not only by this secondary motif, but also by various other details: The whole room appears dilapidated and in a shabby condition, the plaster is falling off the ceiling and the walls, the cat is almost emaciated , even a leather bible cover was cut up to make a new shoe sole. The painting above the fireplace finally shows Tom's father in his coat weighing money - an indication that during his lifetime the house was probably unheated in winter, whereas the old servant now carries wood to the fireplace. The style of the painting shown in the engraving is also significant: it is kept in the Dutch tradition , which for Hogarth and his contemporaries symbolized the taste of the craftsman or merchant who had made money - “lower” art.

The window cross right next to the figure of Rake is a satirical allusion to the cross that Christ has to carry on his way of the cross and to the fact that the antihero Tom is on his way to a kind of anti- passion . This is also interesting because, in the opinion of Hogarth expert Ronald Paulson , the series A Harlot's Progress already contained parodic iconographic allusions to a life of Mary .

Photo 2: Surrounded by artists and professors

Oil painting version of the second scene
Image 2 as a copper engraving

Original title: Surrounded By Artists And Professors

In the second picture, Tom Rakewell has fundamentally changed his surroundings: The room is large and high, architecturally state-of-the-art and furnished with new pictures. Here he holds his lever (the morning reception) like a rich nobleman , which is why the scene has been compared to Molière's bourgeois gentilhomme .

“Eight people are [next to the rake] in the Presence Room, enjoying the happiness of his close presence, and back there six of you are doing limbo . That's fourteen people together ... "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Tom stands in splendid new clothes to the left of a bodyguard, according to the paper he is holding in his hands, a "man of honor" with the name William Stab (English to stab = stab). For Lichtenberg he is “a so-called Bravo , an iron eater who beats himself against a cheap one for other people and, as you can see from the band-aid over the nose, at best lets himself be beaten.” A boxer and master of flogging ( James Figg ), a fencing master and a French violin teacher are also on hand, as is a gardening architect ( Charles Bridgeman , who planned the Stowe Gardens), and in the front right a stable master or jockey kneeling, holding a trophy, Tom’s horse Silly Tom in Epsom won, presented. Lichtenberg writes:

“His horse is called Thomschen, like him, lets other people ride him to their advantage, like him; wouldn't do that if it were wiser, and only suffer it because it's a bit silly like him. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

A hunter blows his hunting horn on the right, while on the left a man is playing on a harpsichord to the music of the fictional opera The Rape of the Sabines .

It was assumed that the harpsichordist either George Frideric Handel is (for talking on the oil painting the initials "FH" for the author of the opera and the name Carestini on the singer list) or Nicola Porpora , director of the King's Theater in the Haymarket (indicate the names Farinelli and Senesino on the list of singers, because these two castrati sang for Porpora's Opera of the Nobility ), but Hogarth could also have enjoyed these clues and deliberately confused the viewer. On the back of the piano chair you can see a long list of gifts that were sent by mostly female, but also some male aristocratic fans to the most famous of the castrati, namely Carlo Broschi , better known by his stage name Farinelli. This is to express that Tom emulates the lifestyle of the nobility.

The paintings in the background suggest that wealth is not necessarily to be equated with good taste - a classical representation of the judgment of Paris , which can therefore be assigned to the aristocratic taste in art, expresses that Tom has money, the flanking images of fighting cocks say with their sporty connotation on the other hand, that it may be fashionable, but has no taste.

In the anteroom you can see a “cleaning lady ( Milliner )” who reacts resignedly to a man's speech, a French tailor and next to him a French “Perüquier; the first with the new gala dress on his arms, the other with the new wig in the box, ”as well as a poet who wrote a poem for Tom Rakewell to flatter him.

Image 2 is the only representation in the cycle that alludes recognizably to famous people who actually existed at the time. Hogarth knew well that the audience loved to look for well-known characters in his works, but probably didn't want to offend too many celebrities by being included in his imagery.

It is striking that the persons providing the rake their services, herumfuchteln some with their weapons (including batons, swords, whip) before his eyes - details that satirized a altdeutsche Flagellation of Christ, as the crowning with thorns from the horror Passion of Hans Holbein d. Ä. , could refer.

Image 3: Scene in the tavern

Oil painting version of the third scene
Image 3 as a copper engraving

Original title: The Tavern Scene

The third picture shows moral decline for the first time - we are in a tavern , the Rose Tavern in Drury Lane, which was notorious in London in the 18th century for the debauchery that took place there - prostitution and gin bars dominated the area.

Tom, sitting on an armchair on the left, is being relieved of his watch by two prostitutes. Such a motif also appears on depictions of the prodigal son in the brothel, which Hogarth may have remembered. The clock indicates that it is 3 o'clock (probably at night), the glass in his hand indicates its condition. Lichtenberg writes:

“ Almost not a single number is left of the six senses he brought with him, and the remnants of those that have not entirely escaped are no longer worth mentioning. The clothes, like the limbs, hang loosely around him and on him, and merely follow the law of gravity. The left stocking has already reached the lowest point, and with the first jerk the trousers will follow the example, and then presumably the gentleman himself will follow. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

In general, the mood of society seems to be very relaxed: two women at the table are engaged in a spat, a woman in the foreground is undressing to pose as a stripper on a tray that is brought in from the right - this was an opportunity for Actresses, whose reputation was very bad anyway, to top up their salaries. Lichtenberg was apparently quite well informed about exactly what the stripper, who by the way was called Aratine, had to offer:

“She is willing to show her skills, and to end up being brought to the table in the costume of the chicken with a fork in her breast, as a living dish. The bowl that is brought in through the door and into which the baboon who brings it shines to announce the spectacle will be the revolving stage on which it will figure. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Signs of chaos and excess can be seen everywhere in the picture: a broken glass on the floor in front of Tom, the broken lamp of the night watchman, the broken mirror and the partly vandalized paintings of the Roman emperors on the wall. The painting by Nero , who was considered the originator of the Great Fire of Rome at the time , is unharmed. In front of the wall, which is hung with pictures, an apparently dead drunk woman tries to set the world map on fire with a candlestick. The symbolism is obvious.

A street singer performs the undoubtedly shoddy ballad Black Joke , competing with a trumpeter and a blind harpist behind the door,

“On whose harp, funny enough, King David, whom Hogarth likes to bring into bad company, is planted again with a harp. So here he is sitting directly in front of Nero, and there you can hardly avoid the thought, if you know Hogarth's wanton mood, that he had put him there to make music to the fire of the world, like that of Rome. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Since exactly twelve people have gathered around the central table, one could also think of the disciples of Jesus and a completely secularized communion scene with this picture, according to Bernd Krysmanski's considerations. The same author even continues to speculate whether Hogarth might not have alluded to a foot washing scene.

Photo 4: Arrested for debt

Oil painting version of the fourth scene
Image 4 as a copper engraving

Original title: Arrested For Debt

In the fourth picture, Tom's descent has begun - he is arrested by a bailiff from his rented litter . Of the

“The policeman holds out a strip of paper [an arrest slip], barely a few inches long, but combined with a beating that is a little longer, and this strip looks to our hero as if it were the ray of heaven itself, which we are there bright lights against it, accompanied by its thunder. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

For the depiction of the sedan chair , Hogarth was inspired by Claude Gillot's painting Les deux carrosses (c. 1707, Musée du Louvre, Paris). The picture symbols show where Tom was going: The man on the left in the picture wears a leek on his hat, a symbol for Saint David, whose holiday was May 1st - and the birthday of the reigning Queen Caroline , which is in St James's Palace was celebrated.

Sarah Young is already there to start Tom with her savings, the contents of her sewing box spill over the street unnoticed by her. The lighter on the ladder, distracted by the events, lets its oil pan overflow, so that the oil is about to pour over Tom's head. Even more dramatic is the lightning bolt, complete with an arrow at the low end, that is about to hit White's Club , a gaming room for the rich.

The fact that Tom does not fit into the aristocratic society in White's Club is made clear (in the revised engraving version) by the seven street children in front of him, who belong to the lower class and who sit around a post labeled “Black's” - they gamble, cheat and steal. Two of them, shoe shiners with their work utensils, play a kind of strip poker, one has only the bare minimum on, with a second pair a lapwing looks over the shoulder of a player who also signals the cards of the observed to a friend. Another is just stealing the handkerchief from the distracted Tom's pocket, and someone is sitting on the floor smoking a pipe and reading The Farthing Post , a cheap sensational paper of the time.

The star-like wound on the naked torso of one boy alludes to the wound on the side of Christ and invites the viewer to compare the boys who are addicted to gambling with the soldiers under the cross of Christ who haggle over the clothes of Jesus. Sarah's encounter with Tom is also reminiscent of Hans Holbein's Noli me tangere (Hampton Court Palace), i.e. the encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus , especially since the gestures of astonishment in Hogarth's rake and Holbein's Christ are similar.

Photo 5: Married to an old maid

Oil painting version of the fifth scene
Image 5 as a copper engraving

Original title: Married To An Old Maid

Despair can already be felt in picture 5: Tom marries an elderly one-eyed woman in Marylebone Old Church in order to clean up his finances. Lichtenberg asks himself: " Is the bride still a virgin  - or actually: is the bride a widow or not ." The church was one of many at that time in which priests married everyone for money, without the formalities (for example the Check whether both partners were unmarried). If the rake had already been married to the young Sarah, about which the new bride knows nothing, the second marriage entered into here would of course be illegal.

At the moment of the ring exchange, however, Tom has already turned his attention to the much younger (and prettier) bridesmaid, while in the background Sarah Young and her newborn are denied access to the church.

Here, too, symbols give meaning to the scene: the pair of dogs on the left reflects the bride and groom. As Lichtenberg notes, this is Hogarth's pug Trump , who is also courting an “elderly creature of his kind”. The evergreen with which the church is decorated not only expresses the winter season, but is also intended to indicate the coldness of the closed connection and the age of the bride. The church itself is in decline, much like Tom's life. The plaster is peeling off the church walls and a spider builds its web in an undisturbed place - above the offering box . The board with the second half of the Ten Commandments is split, the fault line goes exactly through Commandment 9 - “Don't let your neighbor's house lust after you. Don't let your neighbor's wife lust after you ”.

The fact that women fight each other further back in the picture should ironically allude to a traditional motif. In their scenes of Joseph's marriage to Mary, Florentine painters portrayed the rejected younger suitors in an emphatically aggressive manner: they beat old Joseph, who was allowed to marry the young Mary, because his staff (as a divine cue that he is the chosen one) was miraculous Wise bloomed, but the sticks the other suitors brought with them remained unchanged. Hogarth's scene also takes place in a Marienkirche and the bride seems to have a nimbus like Maria . Lichtenberg writes:

"Behind her on the pulpit is the well-known coat of arms of the Jesuits, a sun with the letters I. H. S. in it [...] This symbol, in keeping with its intended purpose, stands straight above the head of injured innocence and becomes a maiden wreath."

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

The overall arrangement of the figures resembles that of a Marriage of the Virgin , with the rake taking the position of high priest and ironically, in Hogarth's portrayal, the gender and age relationships have been reversed.

Image 6: Scene in the gaming room

Oil painting version of the sixth scene
Image 6 as a copper engraving

Original title: Scene In A Gaming House

Tom is about to gamble away the second fortune he has gained through the marriage. He is in a gaming room, his chair is overturned, his wig has slipped off his head, he is kneeling on the floor and curses his fate. Again a dog can be seen as a reflection of Tom to his left.

The scene is similar to picture 3, only here it is men instead of women who accompany Tom's decline. The mood of the players is described by Lichtenberg as follows:

“The expressions on these faces and characters in this society are paramount, as varied as they are, and comprise by far the largest part of the scale of human mood. Limp emptiness on the lowest level, the actual moral nothing and again nothing ; deliberate systematic seriousness and seriousness of a callous nature through acquired numbness; Discontent deeply and quietly withdrawn and discontent with expressions of budding despair; the grinding, frenzied despair, how it rages against itself and the doom, and how it rages suspiciously against others armed with murder rifles; cold blood with good luck and comfortable joy in the midst of the raging throng of curses of the unfortunate, on whose ruin it is based; Fear, horror in all sorts of forms, everything to the extent that makes any object other than the ruling one insensate, are seen here in a colorful mixture. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

The gaming room is of a less sophisticated kind, because among the players there is also a bad-tempered “Highwayman” whose pistol can be seen sticking out of his coat pocket and who seems to have gambled away all of his stolen goods.

“He no longer sees and hears and feels. The boy who stands in front of him, who calls out to him loudly, who really shakes him, is not there for him. It may not be better for smell and taste, because the ordered labe drink is not there for him either. He doesn't even think about the pistol and mask. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Probably the rake, like other desperate players who have gambled away their last coins, has drawn on the services of the moneylender at the table on the left, which will take revenge in the next picture. The fire that was hinted at in image 3 actually broke out here, smoke rises in the background. The night watchman on the far left, as well as the croupier and one player, are aware of the danger; everyone else is too distracted by the game.

The entire scene also parodies Raphael's famous Transfiguration . Tom's raised arm with the desperately clenched fist resembles the upturned arm of the possessed boy at Raphael's, the round table top the plateau of Mount Tabor . Instead of Christ shining brightly against clouds in the sky, Hogarth only depicted two candles against a smoky background, because the transfigured Savior has no place in a gambling den anyway.

Image 7: Scene in the prison

Oil painting version of the seventh scene
Image 7 as a copper engraving

Original title: The Prison Scene

Tom has finally gambled away both of his fortunes and has landed in the debt tower , the Fleet Prison .

“Here he is writhing under the scourge of his righteous doom, - tout beau! Is it possible to depict grief, misery and awakened conscience with all its double-edged agony of fear and remorse in a dissolute worthless thing more than here? Words aren't there yet. Instead of them, however, a wave of eloquent convulsions runs through the emaciated limbs from bottom to top with an unmistakable expression. The hand on the knee rises with great significance, and the foot follows it sympathetically, just as the rolled up skin on the forehead is followed by the eyelids and armpits; the current goes up. It is not an elevation, or at least just that, without which the expression of deep fall, impotence, and ruin , through gestures, is impossible. Everything falls back all the more, and so he speaks the condemnation judgment to himself and becomes his own executioner through desperation. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Back then, a debtor was locked up until he could pay his debt. The prisoner was not entitled to state food; those who could afford it had to pay the guards for food. You can see the prison guard and a page who brought beer demand money from Tom, but to no avail. On the little table is the manuscript for a play that the rake wrote in his desperation in the debt prison to make money. It did not reach the theater manager John Rich , as can be seen from the enclosed letter of rejection.

Tom's one-eyed wife scolds him and gets violent:

“She is busy here making a little change in that of her husband with her little fist, who has just finished her own hairstyle in a hurry. Actually, probably just to help his memory about some circumstances which concern her spent faculties, something which is absolutely impossible with this method without disturbing the capillary system. Indeed, it is doing very right. First she taps her left fist on the shoulder to get rid of the stuck thoughts, and as soon as she notices that they are afloat, with the right she takes a run straight to the place where they are swimming to give them the new direction give. This is how you give polarity to iron yourself. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Tom's former girlfriend Sarah Young has passed out, the child on the skirt. Two women try to bring her back to her senses with smelling salts.

Where in the first pictures still open doors and windows indicated a possibility of escape and turning back, here every escape route is barred. In the background you can see Tom's cell mate, an alchemist , to whom the wings reminiscent of Icarus can be attributed to the top right - another person who, like Tom, tried to get to the sun.

The attitude of the rake can be compared to that of a Christ in dungeon or a Christ at rest .

Image 8: In the madhouse

Oil painting version of the eighth scene
Image 8 as a copper engraving

Original title: In The Madhouse

In the last picture you can finally see Tom's final descent, he has become an inmate of Bedlam , the notorious London madhouse. Both Tom's pose and that of the conceited hermit behind him to the left are modeled on Caius Gabriel Cibber's sculptures Melancholy and Raving Madness , which then adorned the entrance portal of Bedlam.

Tom is being put in chains, still accompanied by Sarah Young, whose love for him is unbroken, who suffers with him crying and has brought him soup.

“One of the nurses, who admittedly doesn't quite see the connection, seems touched by the girl's suffering. He tries to remove her face from Rakewelln in a way that does justice to his feelings. It is pleasant to see that the man's hands have not yet forgotten these positions in the hard work for which they are paid. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Around them you can see other “crazy people”: an astronomer with a paper telescope and a mathematician trying to put longitudes on a globe image on the wall (the determination of longitude was unsolved until the late 18th century and with a large one Reward linked task). A religious fanatic sits in cell 54. He worships a wooden cross and is enthusiastic about three martyrs: St. Laurentius, St. Athanasius and St. Clemens, as can be seen from the pictures on the cell wall. In the neighboring cell No. 55, a naked man with a scepter seems to feel like a king. In addition to a crazy violinist and an unhappily in love man on the stairs to the right, a man has dressed up as Pope:

“A trio, something like faith, love and hope in Bedlam. They seem to belong together, and yet these heads can probably be further apart than always three fixed stars that formed such a triangle. It's all just apparent. Everyone is a world for himself, none of which shines for the others and none of which darkens the other; each has its own light. "

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

There is no doubt: Tom is surrounded by a loss of reality.

From today's perspective, perhaps the most shocking motif in the picture is that of the fine lady and her maid in the background. The two noble women represent visitors to the madhouse who, for their amusement, went to the madmen, as was customary at the time for entertainment purposes, and, slightly ashamed, look away from behind a raised fan to watch the naked "king" masturbate.

The main scene around the mad rake sitting on the ground and in chains parodies a lamentation of Christ . The crying Sarah takes on the role of the grieving Maria.

The specifics of the oil painting

Engraving and oil painting are very different artistic media. The oil version of A Harlot's Progress burned in 1755, so that in this case only Hogarth's engravings have survived; The paintings in the Rake series, on the other hand, have been preserved in full, but are located a bit apart from the usual art scene in the little-known London Sir John Soane's Museum , so that for this reason alone the engravings are better known than the paintings. For the most part, Hogarth no longer produced the copperplate versions of later cycles himself, but hired professional engravers for them. The engravings and paintings of A Rake's Progress are therefore the only serial works by the artist that allow a more precise comparison of Hogarth's technique in both media. Such a comparison also makes it clear that Hogarth changed some of the motifs in his copperplate engravings, and even included additional details in the engraving version in favor of a current political allusion in order to reinforce the satirical statement for his contemporaries. Generally, however, the oil paintings show the same scenes as the copper engravings.

Although some of the motifs in the oil paintings of the Rake series are less detailed than in the copperplate engravings because of Hogarth's relatively coarse brushwork, the art historian Julius Meier-Graefe sees “an uncanny force” at work in the paintings, although even “through the Unit of sensation "primitive detail that increase the effect:

“The first painting [...] suggests the whole color scheme of the future. In the silvery gray and blue of the hero's open vest, whose delicate face, surrounded by bright brown curls, only whispers the most graceful desirability, the orange-brown of the mass-defining tailor with the red cap hugs. The blue is further developed in the spotted dress of the old woman, the strongest figure, and the young, the 'Bedmakers daughter', brings the delicate pink and orange and the rich white to it. This bouquet stands out brilliantly against the velasquez-like brown of the walls. "

In the sixth painting, the scene in the gambling den,

“The angry gesture of the ruined man breaks through the colorless darkness like a magical light. Like many others, the picture is badly spoiled by darkening and was painted barbarically from the start. But it still looks like a look into half-buried ruins, where accidentally preserved details urge our thoughts to rebuild. As little as the effort is, the little that is nonetheless gives with uncanny certainty the inwardness of each individual group, the indifference to the fate of the spendthrift whose cry reaches us like the echo of invisible forces. "

Ernst H. Gombrich emphasizes in his History of Art that Hogarth "listened to" the kind of Francesco Guardi from Venetian masters , "how to conjure up a figure with a few brushstrokes". In his brief review of the last painting in the Rake series, he writes :

“The special thing about Hogarth is that, despite all the joy of telling stories, he always remained a painter, not only in the brushwork and distribution of light and color, but also in the extremely skillful arrangement of his figures. The grotesque group around the sloppy is composed as carefully as an Italian painting of the classical period. "

In contrast to the copperplate version of the eighth scene, in which the rake is wearing trousers, the oil painting version shows the main character in a white loincloth, which could be understood as a clearer reference to the linen cloth that the dying Jesus wore on the cross. The death of the negative hero in the madhouse would have been associated with Christ's death on the cross even more in the oil painting than in the copper engraving version.

The captions under the engravings

The texts under the prints of the first edition, which were also retained for all later editions, come from a friend of Hogarth who had a poetic talent, namely the Reverend John Hoadly (1711–1776), the son of Bishop Benjamin Hoadly. These captions contain moralizing comments in the Christian sense, which have relatively little to do with the motivation of the artist and neither explain the details shown nor add any content. A German translation from the 19th century tries to recreate the style of the original verses. For example, about the stingy father of Rake, who died in scene 1, the first lines are:

“O nothingness of old age, the presumptuous, completely
erroneously forgotten one's aim of life!
Why are the bells sound to
you? As if the rattling of death's chains mock you?

They let you live in dark suspicion
And always tremble with anticipated pain.
Then when your body matured to death,
you have piled up useless and pointless treasures. "

And the last verses about the madhouse scene in picture 8 read:

“The horrible form of joy, in whose face
nothing remains of the light of the spirit.
O nothingness of time! Here you see, sunk to the beast,
the heir of heaven, the covering of the divine spark.

That is the reward of a failed life, boundless sin,
So that the happiness darling can find himself here again,
The rattling chains fill him with horror
And his frenzy envelops in despair at night. "

The verses in the tradition of vanitas motifs, which seem banal today , deal moralizing with abstract concepts such as vanity, prosperity and dubious worldly pleasures and thus correspond to the expected conventions of a spiritual culture characterized by moral principles and courtesy ("politeness"). The ambivalence of the vanitas motif is an argument in favor of the thesis put forward by art historian Bernd Krysmanski at the end of the 20th century that the artist created his cycle - with blasphemous intent? - designed in the form of an "anti-passion" and even enjoyed obscene details. This assumption is based solely on subject comparisons and the analysis of image details. Nothing can be found in the captions.

Versions of the stitches

Shortly after the cycle was first published, Hogarth made some major changes to images 1, 3 and 4, as well as minor changes to images 2 and 7. For example, in scene 1 the figure of Sarah was modified so that she looks older and less attractive and has got a narrower face; Furthermore, the artist has added a bible in the foreground on the left, from whose cover the leather for a shoe sole has been cut out. In scene 3, the stripper appears greatly changed, the rake's face has been redesigned and the portrait of Caesar on the wall is transformed into a portrait of the French innkeeper Pontac, who ran a bar in London's Abchurch Lane and whose luxury was famous. In scene 4, the group of seven boys immersed in gambling on the pavement did not join in until later, and the lightning bolt in the sky was also greatly changed from state to state. After the artist was worn down by political arguments with some ex-boyfriends in 1762–63, he retouched all of the pictures again in 1763, a year before his death. In Figure 8, for example, the coin painted on the wall bears the year 1763.

The last prints of Hogarth's original plates were made in 1822 by the engraver James Heath for his large-format volume The Works of William Hogarth , although the lines on the plates were reworked by him, so the original condition is no longer entirely preserved. All illustrated publications on Hogarth that appeared later in the 19th century contain only inferior copies of his work engraved in steel. It is Heath's final version of the prints from the original plates that is used here to illustrate the Wikipedia article.

reception

British and French reception

Shortly after the series appeared, there were a number of literary publications in England - in addition to the usual plagiarism that could not be prevented - dealing with the life of a libertine. These include the poetic pamphlets The Rake's Progress: or, The Humours of Drury Lane , The Rake's Progress: or, The Humors of St. James’s and The Progress of a Rake: or, The Templar's Exit , albeit only slightly are literary value.

A first short description of the eight pictures in the series was given in French in Jean André Rouquet's Lettres de Monsieur… à un de ses Amis à Paris, pour lui expliquer les Estampes de Monsieur Hogarth (London 1746). The author was an artist and friends with Hogarth, so he may have received first-hand information for his writing. William Gilpin wrote his first style-critical analysis of the rake series in his Essay upon Prints (1768), where he even accused the artist of some formal weaknesses, arguing from the perspective of high art.

This was followed by the strongly moralizing remarks by Pastor John Trusler in Hogarth Moralized (London 1768), which probably mainly reflect the views of Hogarth's pious widow and later, especially in Victorian England, continued to circulate in different versions, and since 1781 John Nichols 'Comments in the various editions of his Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth , which were based on information from contemporaries, identified some figures in Hogarth's pictures as real people of the time and in the early 19th century in a revised form in the Genuine Works of William Hogarth (1808– 1810) were reprinted. At the end of the 18th century, French translations of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's German Hogarth Commentaries were also published, which were aimed primarily at an educated audience.

Charles Lamb's famous essay On the Genius and Character of Hogarth , in which the rake series is compared with Shakespeare's Timon of Athens , appeared for the first time in 1811 . Since then, in almost every major study of the 19th and 20th centuries on Hogarth in the English-speaking world, the series A Rake's Progress has been extensively recognized, especially in the interpretations of the American Hogarth expert Ronald Paulson, which were made in the second half of the 20th century showed the diverse literary and art historical influences on the series. Even in Ernst H. Gombrich's Story of Art , according to the Guardian the most famous and popular art history book in the world, which has been translated into around 30 languages, the qualities of A Rake's Progress are discussed.

German language area

The rake series has also been extremely popular in Germany since the second half of the 18th century. The German edition of Hogarth's work The Analysis of Beauty (1753), published in 1754, already contained a translation of Rouquet's French explanations on the Rake series as an appendix , and in 1769 the anonymous work contained The works of Mr. Willm Hogarth in copper engravings Moralisch und Satyrisch explained a chapter on "The Incidents of a Lüderlichen".

The success can also be seen in the fact that there were comparable picture cycles conceived for the German market, such as Daniel Chodowiecki's twelve sheets on the life of a Lüderlichen (1772), which, however, portray the protagonist's career less drastically than Hogarth, because here he receives from his When he was born, Lüderliche's parents even neglected adequate training, including riding lessons, but neglects his university studies, gets into debt when dealing with whores and playing cards, escapes prison through marriage, but ultimately ends up in complete ruin. Only here he does not die in the madhouse like at Hogarth's, but from illness. There were also extensive books such as Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's Das Leben eines Lüderlichen. (Leipzig 1787), a work that makes reference to both Hogarth and Chodowiecki's representations.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg published the original version of his famous commentaries on the rake series for the first time in 1785 in the Göttingen pocket calendar , to which Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen contributed copper engravings based on Hogarth. These explanations, written with a lot of pun, probably come closest to the satirical views of Hogarth, if one compares all early commentators. In 1796 the author expanded these commentaries for his detailed explanations (1794–1799), which were reprinted over and over again in the 19th and 20th centuries. These explanations also had an influence on Ludwig Tieck's epistolary novel The Story of Mr. William Lovell (1795/96). In the 19th century, paraphrases of the Lichtenberg Commentaries, written by Franz Kottenkamp, ​​appeared in several editions, which underscores their continued popularity with the public.

In the 20th century, countless studies and courses on Hogarth and Lichtenberg dealt with the rake series in Germany. For example, the well-known Berlin art historian Werner Busch dealt with the iconography of the first and last scenes in his Funkkolleg Kunst in the mid-1980s and in his teaching units on 18th century English art published on the Internet and belonged to the Hagen Open University and Comprehensive School under the literary scholar Monika Schmitz-Emans since the mid-1990s Lichtenberg's Hogarth explanations on standard reading for German studies students. Comprehensive university studies on Lichtenberg such as Hans-Georg von Arburg's art-science around 1800: Studies on Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's Hogarth Commentaries (Göttingen 1998) also shed light on most of the German Enlightenment’s comments on the life of a libertine.

Fine arts, stage, film and music

Artistically inspired Hogarth's series in Germany graphic artists such as Johann Heinrich Ramberg , for example his sheets from the life of Strunks the upstart (1822–1825), as well as some graphics by Wilhelm von Kaulbach , such as his criminal from a lost honor (1831) or his fool's house from 1833 / 34. Furthermore, the influences of Hogarth's imagery on a number of caricaturists and the Pre-Raphaelites of the 19th century cannot be overlooked.

In the 20th century in particular, Hogarth's series had a considerable international influence on very different art forms: ballet, film, opera, graphics, painting and rock music.

  • In 1935 the ballet The Rake's Progress was premiered at Sadler's Wells Theater, London, to which Gavin Gordon (1901-1970) wrote the music. Ninette de Valois was responsible for the choreography and Rex Whistler (1905–1944) was responsible for the set design .
  • Val Lewton's and Mark Robson's horror film Bedlam (1945) with Boris Karloff and Anna Lee in the leading roles is inspired by Hogarth's A Rake's Progress and especially by the last scene, which takes place in the London madhouse.
  • In 1951 Igor Stravinsky wrote the opera The Rake's Progress , the libretto of which by WH Auden and Chester Kallman is loosely based on Hogarth's paintings.
  • 1961-63 David Hockney created his 16-part graphic version of Rake's Progress , in which he relates his own New York experiences to Hogarth's scenes and, for example, the receipt of an inheritance, a drinking scene at the bar, the marriage of an old maid and represents a Bedlam scene, but is so detached from the original that the original is hardly recognizable. In 1975 Hockney was also the set designer for a production of Stravinski's opera. Here he was more inspired than in his graphic series by Hogarth's pictorial worlds of the 18th century.
  • In 1970/71 Alfred Hrdlicka's eight-part etching cycle The Rake's Progress was created , which is based much more closely on Hogarth's original series than the works of other modern artists, but tries to see the entire life of the libertine from the point of view of the madman, and therefore the cycle starts with the scene in the madhouse.
  • 1991 published progressive rock band Marillion the title The Rakes Progress on the album Holidays in Eden . The piece, which is only 1:54 minutes long, combines the titles This Town and 100 Nights into an almost twelve-minute unit. The short text comes from the Marillion singer Steve Hogarth , whose content is based on its namesake and addresses the widespread decline of inner values ​​in urban space.
  • In 1994, Jörg Immendorff designed the stage sets for a production of Stravinski's The Rake's Progress during the Salzburg Festival, using various motifs by Hogarth in a self-ironic manner. In addition, a series of paintings and prints was created in which the German artist repeatedly varied the theme of the young rake.
  • In 2006 an exhibition at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg brought together the works of Hogarth, Stravinsky and Hockney
  • In 2012, the English artist Grayson Perry presented for the first time under the title The Vanity of Small Differences six tapestries inspired by Hogarth's Rake series, which deal with the life of Tim Rakewell and his social mobility in modern English consumer society from childhood to to his fatal car accident, in which, as with Hogarth, allusions to the religious art of old masters of the Renaissance period can be found.
  • In 2013, the German artist Ulrike Theusner created a series of drawings entitled A Rake's Progress: The career of a libertine.

literature

English:

  • Ronald Paulson: Hogarth. Volumes 1-3, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 1991-1993.
    The standard work on Hogarth.
  • Ronald Paulson: Hogarth's Graphic Works. 3rd ed., The Print Room, London 1989.
    The standard work on Hogarth's copperplate engravings.
  • Ronald Paulson: The Art of Hogarth. Phaidon, London 1975.
  • Robert LS Cowley: An Examination and Interpretation of Narrative Features in 'A Rake's Progress'. Master's thesis, University of Birmingham 1972.
  • David Bindman: Hogarth. Thames and Hudson, London 1981.
  • Jenny Uglow : Hogarth: A Life and a World. Faber and Faber, London 1997.
  • Robin Simon and Christopher Woodward (Eds.): 'A Rake's Progress': From Hogarth to Hockney. Exhibition cat., Sir John Soane's Museum, London 1997.
  • Mark Hallett: The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth. Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1999.
  • Mark Hallett: Hogarth. Phaidon Press, London 2000.
  • Christine Stevenson: Hogarth's Mad King and his Audiences. In History Workshop Journal 49 (2000), pp. 25-43.
  • Christina Scull: The Soane Hogarths. 2nd ed., Sir John Soane's Museum, London 2007.
  • Anaclara Castro: The Rake's (Un) lawfully Wedded Wives in William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress . In: Eighteenth-Century Life. Volume 40, Issue 2 (2016), pp. 66–87.
  • Elizabeth Einberg: William Hogarth: A Complete Catalog of the Paintings. Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2016.
    The standard work on Hogarth's paintings.

German:

  • GC Lichtenberg's detailed explanation of Hogarth's copper engravings. In it: The Rake's Progress. (1796). In: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: Writings and letters. Edited by Wolfgang Promies, Third Volume, Munich 1972, pp. 821-910.
  • Frederick Antal : Hogarth and his position in European art. VEB Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1966.
  • Werner Busch : Imitation as a bourgeois artistic principle: Iconographic quotations from Hogarth and his successors. Georg Olms, Hildesheim and New York 1977.
  • Berthold Hinz u. a .: William Hogarth. 1697-1764. Catalog for the exhibition of the New Society for Fine Arts e. V. in the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin from June 28th to August 10th 1980. Berlin 1980.
  • Hermann Josef Schnackertz: Form and function of media narration: narrativity in image sequences and comic strips. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 1980.
  • Herwig Guratzsch, Karl Arndt: William Hogarth: The copper engraving as a moral stage. Exhibition cat. Wilhelm Busch Museum Hannover 1987. Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1987.
  • Bernd Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 1 and 2). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1998. pp. 204–242, and Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1999. pp. 113–160 .
  • Free University of Berlin: The English Art of the 18th Century. Part 1: William Hogarth: A Rake's Progress. A dissolute résumé.
  • Katy Barrett: "These lines are so extremely fine": William Hogarth and John Harrison solve the longitude problem. In: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chronometrie 52 (2013), pp. 27–36.
  • Hans-Peter Wagner: William Hogarth: The graphic work: An annotated selection catalog. WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 2013.

Web links

Commons : A Rake's Progress  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg : Detailed explanation of the Hogarthische Kupferstiche. The Rake's Progress: The way of the careless in the Gutenberg-DE project
  2. ^ Ronald Paulson: Hogarth. Volume 1, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 1991, pp. 26-37.
  3. ^ Frederic George Stephens and Edward Hawkins: Catalog of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum . 4 volumes, London 1870–1883. Herbert M. Atherton: Political Prints in the Age of Hogarth. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1974. Jürgen Döring: An art history of the early English caricature. Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim 1991.
  4. First published in the original wording in: Joseph Burke (Ed.): The Analysis of Beauty. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955, pp. 201-236 (cited p. 209).
  5. Werner Busch : Imitation as a bourgeois art principle. Iconographic quotations from Hogarth and his successors. Georg Olms, Hildesheim and New York 1977. Bernd Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 2). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1999, pp. 113–160, here pp. 123–125.
  6. See e.g. B. Hilde Kurz: Italian Models of Hogarth's Picture Stories. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Volume 15 (1952), pp. 136-168.
  7. More on literary references in Robert Etheridge Moore: Hogarth's Literary Relationships. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1948.
  8. Berthold Hinz et al .: William Hogarth, 1697–1764. Exhibition cat. of the New Society for Fine Arts e. V., Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin 1980, p. 92.
  9. Jarno Jessen : William Hogarth. 2nd edition, Berlin 1905, p. 22.
  10. See Frederick Antal: Hogarth and his Place in European Art. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1962. Werner Busch: Imitation as a bourgeois art principle: Iconographic quotations from Hogarth and his successors. Olms, Hildesheim 1977. Bernd W. Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'Enthusiasm Delineated': Imitation as a criticism of connoisseurship. 2 volumes, Olms, Hildesheim 1996.
  11. Ronald Paulson: The Beautiful, Novel, and Strange: Aesthetics and Heterodoxy. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London 1996.
  12. ^ Charles Lamb: On the Genius and Character of Hogarth; with some Remarks on a Passage in the Writings of the late Mr. Barry. In: The Reflector. Volume 2, No. 3 (1811), pp. 61-77.
  13. Peter Wagner: Reading Iconotexts: From Swift to the French Revolution. Reaction Books, London 1995.
  14. Vertue Note Books III. In: Walpole Society. Volume 22 (1933-34), p. 58.
  15. ^ A Rake's Progress in Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Extract from a report broadcast on BBC One
  16. ^ Ronald Paulson: Hogarth's Graphic Works. 3rd ed., The Print Room, London 1989, pp. 13, 89, 92.
  17. ^ Paulson: Hogarth's Graphic Works. 3rd ed., P. 86.
  18. ^ David Kunzle: Plagiaries-by-memory of the Rake's Progress and the Genesis of Hogarth's second Picture Story. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 29 (1966), pp. 311-348.
  19. ^ Ronald Paulson: Hogarth. Volume 2, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 1992, pp. 35-47. Jürgen Döring: The importance of the Hogarth Act of 1735 for English graphics and their relationship to daily literature. In: Joachim Möller (Ed.): Sister Arts: English literature in the borderland of art areas. Jonas, Marburg 2001, pp. 38-50.
  20. tate.org.uk
  21. A Rake's Progress By William Hogarth - Seven Ages of Britain (documentary by BBC One ).
  22. ^ Ronald Paulson: Hogarth. High art and low. 1732-1750. Lutterworth, Cambridge 1992, pp. 31 ff. ISBN 0-7188-2855-0 .
  23. See Wolfgang Müller-Funck: Experience and Experiment. Studies on the theory and history of essayism. Akademie, Berlin 1995, p. 104 ff. ISBN 3-05-002613-8 .
  24. Rudolf Wehrli: GC Lichtenbergs detailed explanation of the Hogarthische Kupferstiche: attempt an interpretation of the interpreter , Bonn 1980.
  25. GC Lichtenberg's detailed explanation of the Hogarthische Kupferstiche (1794–1799) . In: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: Writings and letters. Edited by Wolfgang Promies, Third Volume, Munich 1972, pp. 657-1060. Friedemann Spicker: Lichtenberg and Hogarth: To the reception of the 'detailed explanation of the Hogarthische Kupferstiche'. Lichtenberg Yearbook 2015, pp. 71–96.
  26. ^ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: Writings and letters. ed. by Wolfgang Promies, Volume III, Munich 1972, pp. 822-823.
  27. ^ Ronald Paulson: Hogarth's Graphic Works. 3rd ed., P. 90. Hinz et al: William Hogarth, 1697–1764. Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin 1980, p. 92.
  28. ^ Anaclara Castro: The Rake's (Un) lawfully Wedded Wives in William Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress". In: Eighteenth-Century Life. Volume 40, Issue 2 (2016), pp. 66–87.
  29. The English Art of the 18th Century. Part 1: William Hogarth: The objects and their meaning.
  30. The English Art of the 18th Century. Part 1: William Hogarth: Processing the Art Tradition.
  31. Bernd Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 1). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1998. pp. 204–242.
  32. ^ Ronald Paulson: Hogarth's Harlot: Sacred Parody in Enlightenment England. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2003, pp. 27-87.
  33. ^ Mark Hallett: Hogarth. Phaidon Press, London 2000, pp. 116-117.
  34. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 835.
  35. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 836.
  36. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 842.
  37. Jeremy Barlow: 'The Enraged Musician': Hogarth's Musical Imagery. Ashgate, Aldershot (Hampshire) 2005, p. 192.
  38. Thomas McGeary: Farinelli and the English: 'One God' or the Devil? In: RevueLisa. Vol. II, no. 3 (2004), pp. 19-28.
  39. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 847.
  40. Hans Holbein the Elder Ä .: Crown of thorns. (from the "Gray Passion"), State Gallery Stuttgart
  41. Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 1). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1998. pp. 206-210.
  42. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 851.
  43. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 857.
  44. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 857.
  45. Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 1). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1998. pp. 210–211.
  46. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, pp. 861-862.
  47. Claude Gillot: Les deux carrosses (approx. 1707) . Frederick Antal: Hogarth and his position in European art. Dresden 1966, pp. 126–127 and Fig. 108.
  48. Hans Holbein the Elder J .: "Noli me tangere" (Hampton Court Palace)
  49. Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 1). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1998. pp. 211-214.
  50. ^ Lichtenberg, Writings and Letters. Volume III, p. 874.
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  57. Krysmanski: Hogarth's 'A Rake's Progress' as 'Anti-Passion' of Christ (Part 1). In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1998. pp. 220-227.
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  59. ^ Lichtenberg: writings and letters. Volume III, p. 892.
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  62. Beyond Bedlam: infamous mental hospital's new museum opens. In: The Guardian. February 18, 2015.
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  64. Katy Barrett: "These lines are so extremely fine": William Hogarth and John Harrison solve the longitude problem. In: German Society for Chronometry. 52 (2013), pp. 27-36.
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  72. Quoted from Berthold Hinz et al: William Hogarth, 1697–1764. Exhibition cat. of the New Society for Fine Arts e. V., Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin 1980, p. 95.
  73. Quoted from Hinz et al .: William Hogarth, 1697–1764. P. 104.
  74. Lawrence E. Klein: Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge and New York 1994.
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  76. John Ireland: Hogarth illustrated from his own manuscripts. Vol. 3, Boydell, London 1812, p. 328.
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  78. ^ Tate: William Hogarth: A Rake's Progress. (plate 8), 1735-63.
  79. James Heath ARA, Historical Engraver to the King.
  80. James Heath: The Works of William Hogarth. (1822): William Hogarth: The Rake's Progress. ( Memento of the original from August 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Online version) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cle.ens-lyon.fr
  81. ^ Art of the Print, A Rake's Progress.
  82. David Kunzle: lagiaries-by-memory of the Rake's Progress and the Genesis of Hogarth's second Picture Story. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 29 (1966), pp. 311-348.
  83. ^ Moore: Hogarth's Literary Relationships. Minneapolis 1948, pp. 49-53.
  84. ^ William Gilpin: Hogarth's Rake's Progress. In: Ders .: An Essay upon Prints. (1768).
  85. ^ Charles Lamb: On the Genius and Character of Hogarth. (1811)
  86. ^ William Skidelsky: Picture perfect. In: The Guardian. May 17, 2009.
  87. Hogarth and posterity: From Lichtenberg to Hrdlicka. Exhibition catalog, University of Göttingen 1988, pp. 56–57.
  88. ^ German Historical Museum: Presentation on the "Life of a Lüderlichen".
  89. Hogarth and posterity: From Lichtenberg to Hrdlicka. Pp. 60-62.
  90. Christoph Friedrich Bretzner: The life of a Lüderlichen: A moral-satyrical painting. (Leipzig 1791)
  91. Wolfgang Promies (Ed.): Lichtenbergs Hogarth: The calendar explanations by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg with the engravings by Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen for the copperplate plates by William Hogarth. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich and Vienna 1999.
  92. Monika Schmitz-Emans: The way of the songful in the literature. Thoughts on the importance of Hogarth and Lichtenberg for Tiecks 'William Lovell'. In: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch 1994. pp. 141–168.
  93. Werner Busch: The English art of the 18th century.
  94. The English Art of the 18th Century. Part 1: William Hogarth: The objects and their meaning.
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  96. JP Wearing: The London Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. 2nd ed., Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham 2014, p. 168.
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  98. Hockney to Hogarth: A Rake's Progress. Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, 2012.
  99. ^ The Rake's Progress: Stage design for The Rake's Progress , performed at Glyndebourne Festival Opera 1975.
  100. Hogarth and posterity: From Lichtenberg to Hrdlicka. Pp. 98-102.
  101. ^ KettererKunst: Alfred Hrdlicka: The Rakes Progress.
  102. Anne-Aurore Inquimbert: Camion Blanc: Marillion - L'ère Hogarth. Camion Blanc, Rosières-en-Haye 2014, ISBN 978-2-35779-650-8 (French).
  103. Bazon Brock: The staged life - life as a work of art. In: Art of Living in the 21st Century. ed. from the Heinz-Nixdorf-MuseumsForum, Paderborn 2003, p. 17.
  104. ^ Beate Reifenscheid: Jörg Immendorf: Immendorff - The graphic work. In: ArtPerfect. August 18, 2011.
  105. ^ British Council: Hogarth, Hockney and Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress.
  106. ^ British Council: Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences.
  107. ^ Victoria Miro Gallery: Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences.
  108. Ulrike Theusner: Vita.
  109. Ulrike Theusner: A Rake's Progress: The career of a libertine. (2013)
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on September 26, 2016 in this version .