- Paperback: 800 pages
- Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (Sep 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0374528519
- ISBN-13: 978-0374528515
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.1 x 4.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 751,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
William Hogarth: A Life and a World
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Born and raised in Smithfield, between the hospital and the debtor's prison, William Hogarth witnessed greed and cruelty, crime and disease, the "scummy, solid and stinking" Holborn River, the lively spectacle of "waxworks, rope-dancing and music booths" and "obscene, lascivious and scandalous plays, comedies and farces" otherwise known as Bartholomew Fair. He walked past brewers' barrels, fish stalls, ungrateful beggars, and all orders of fops, harlots and chimney sweeps--and, luckily for us, captured his vibrant 18th-century surroundings with a satirical, exacting and often tender eye.
Uglow's detailed attentions to the historical facts of the day enliven and educate this fascinating portrait of the artist. We learn, for instance, that in Hogarth's revision of "The Distressed Poet", a caricature of Alexander Pope was replaced with a relatively innocuous engraving of a poem, thereby lessening his chances of making enemies with an influential figure. With splendidly detailed explanations and asides such as these, Uglow is never plodding, never dry. Particularly amusing is her explanation of the six-plate series titled "Marriage a la Mode", and her insightful unravelling of that by-gone custom known as arranged marriage. For those who prefer to learn their history with a smile, Uglow provides a splendidly entertaining and well-researched volume. --Martha Silano --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Hogarth's prints hang in our pubs and leap out from our history-books. He painted the great and good but also the common people. His art is comically exuberant, 'carried away by a passion for the ridiculous', as Hazlitt said.
In this rich, immensely pleasurable biography Jenny Uglow, acclaimed author of Elizabeth Gaskell, uncovers the man, but also the worlds he sprang from and created. After striving years as an engraver and painter, Hogarth leapt into lasting fame with his progresses of the Harlot and the Rake, the fashionable Marriage à la Mode, and the violent scenes of Gin Lane and the Stages of Cruelty. An artist of flamboyant, overflowing imagination, he was a satirist with an unerring eye; a painter of vibrant colour and tenderness; an ambitious professional who broke all the art-world taboos. Never content, he wanted to excel at everything - from engraving to history painting - and a note of risk runs through his life.
In Hogarth: A Life and a World, art history comes to life in the voices of Hogarth's own age. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a great artist and a proud, stubborn, comic, vulnerable man.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is wonderfully readable. I can't add to the recommendations as skillfully as the other reviewers but they don't mention the reproductions of the prints and paintings that Jenny Uglow refers to. They are a bit small but always timely and with a magnifying glass (for me anyway)very detailed. Best thing I've read for ages. Helped me to form a thoroughly enjoyable appreciation of William Hogarth and of Jenny Uglow.
46 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Jenny Uglow chose wisely when she decided to write her Hogarth biography as and old-fashioned life-and-times.
Hogarth recorded his life in his art rather than in literary documents, but fortunately for his biographers, his art everywhere displayed his attitudes to, and his interaction with, his times. It's not surprising, therefore, that Uglow's sub-title is "A Life and a World".
And she renders that world of eighteenth-century London superbly. Want to know about deism, the Bangorian Controversy, the culture of procuresses and brothels, the attitudes to women? Go for it - it's all there. Or perhaps you've forgotten what little you knew about the political system of the time, the aesthetic theories, the influence of The Spectator, or the impact of the opera on cultural life? Good - that's also there.
Not only is it there but it is also insinuated so smoothly into the biographical narrative that you're scarcely aware you're being instructed. Moreover, if the reviews I've read are representative, you may also be unaware that some of this instruction is couched in ravishingly beautiful prose. Re-read the sections on Gay's "The Beggar's Opera", Walpole's reputation and the culture of refinement and politeness, for example. Are you not in the hands of a writer who has the rhythms of classic English prose throbbing through her veins? Not convinced? Read it aloud.
At his best, Hogarth was a portraitist of genius. At her best, so is Jenny Uglow. Gaze upon her brilliant joint portrait of Hogarth and Fielding in Chapter 9, but be sure to gaze in awe.
And the mention of Fielding is a reminder that Uglow has already written a study of him, as well as biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot. Presumably she is steeped in the culture of English literature. It shows. Her analyses of Hogarth's works are infused with that attention to detailed perception and critical interpretation that dominated academic "close reading" literary criticism decades ago. They draw attention to details you've never noticed before and fill in historical and biographical background you've never been privy to.
This biography is a wonderful read for anyone interested in Hogarth the artist, or for anyone fascinated by Hogarth, the tough-minded, opportunistic, satirical subversive. William Hazlitt captured the essence of the artist in eight words when he said Hogarth was "carried away by a passion for the ridiculous" - a point well supported by the dozens of reproductions threaded through the text. Jenny Uglow boils down the essence of the man when she says that obedience and submissivness were never his virtues, a point supported by the sharply written anecdotes that pepper the narrative.
She needs more space to capture the spirit of the times, but capture it she does in the many passages of historical background and the pen portraits of London. (Don't miss the street walk at the beginning of Chapter 15.)
After spending 20 hours of so in Jenny Uglow's model of Hogarth's world, you may, like me, be reluctant to return to the real one...of cooking and cleaning and...oh, no!...I can't stand it: I'm going back to Southwark Fair and the Harlot's Progress and, yes, even to Satan, Sin and Death!
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The subject of this book has always been of great interest to me. It is the best book about Hogarth that I have ever read. This book does not sell itself short by lack of detail but, at the same time, is never boring. If you are not particularly interested in the subject, it will still provide great detail about the Eighteenth Century. I would strongly and wholeheartedly recommend this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An enriching experience
An astonishing work of scholarship but also a most interesting and stimulating entertainment. Good not only on the man but on the social and political context of his life. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Varifocal
Hogarth
A definite book on the life and work of Hogarth which provides an insight into the life of a man who was involved with many famous contemporary figures and had entrées into... Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2010 by J. R. Lovell
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