William Hogarth — A Harlot’s Progress
The first blog looks at a set of paintings done by William Hogarth. When I first saw his paintings, I was surprised at the amount of detail he could achieve with his paint brush back in the 1700s. His attention to details, especially with people’s facial expressions, help to not only bring the scene to life but also explore the different feelings of each characters within the scene. He is also very good at passing serious messages across to his audience. This is especially true for this set of paintings where he vividly draws out the depressing life of a prostitute in 6 prints.
The most memorable print of this set for me is the one below. Near the end of Moll’s (prostitute) life, she is suffering and dying due to disease she has caught. Even at this point in her life, there is no peace in the scene: two doctors are arguing over the treatment while the maid is trying to take all she can from the petty left over of Moll’s belongings.
The interior of the house shows a lot about London’s lower class citizen during the 1700s. To start off with, there is nothing much in the house other than broken furnitures and old clothes. The walls and ceilings look as if they are about to collapse. These physical signs of destruction along with the discord between people creates a natural inclination to “end”. But because Moll is merely an example of a typical prostitute and that this cycle will go on and on for many women in the city, Hogarth highlights this never ending world of chaos for lower class citizens. This does not only apply to prostitutes in the city but everyone who makes an appearance in the 6 prints such as the doctors in the print above or the prisoners in the print below.
Everyone, no matter what position they are in, seem to hate the situation. However, nobody wishes to help each other. In fact, people feed off other people’s pain for their own entertainment. This sense of helplessness inflicts a great amount of emotion for people looking at the paintings. Hogarth sort of shows through this set of prints that at this point in London’s history, there are a lot of problems in society and that people are becoming more and more aware of it. However, The only way to fix it is for change to occur from people within this scene as they are the ones trapping each other in this vicious cycle.
