William Hogarth (1697-1764), famous for his satiric representations of high and low life in eighteenth-century London, took as one of his central artistic themes the staging of otherness and difference. In a groundbreaking book, a group of international art historians and cultural theorists investigates this major yet overlooked dimension of Hogarth's art and aesthetics. They show that, whether Hogarth depicts a harlot or a wealthy patroness, a gouty earl or a dissolute rake, a black servant or an effeminate parasite, issues of class, gender, and race reverberate throughout his paintings and prints and deeply inform his unique innovation, the Modern Moral Subject.
Drawing on a broad array of methodologies, the authors of the fifteen essays gathered in this volume include the latest insights of cultural history, gender studies, and visual theory to look afresh at a constellation of themes and issues prominent in Hogarth's work: the construction of diverse social, sexual, and racial identities; the role of women in the family and the public sphere; the critique of a culture of increasing commodification and imperial expansion; issues of politics and patronage; the body as a bearer of aesthetic as well as erotic desire. The volume also features the autobiographical testimony of a contemporary black feminist artist who took Hogarth's work as an inspiration.
By looking at this unsuspected dimension of Hogarth's work, The Other Hogarth both presents a revisionist perspective on the artist and invites us to read in his images the broader operations of eighteenth-century visual culture.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are David Bindman, Patricia Crown, Mark Hallett, Lubaina Himid, Christina Kiaer, Sarah Maza, Richard Meyer, Frédéric Ogée, Amelia Rauser, Sean Shesgreen, David Solkin, Nadia Tscherny, James Grantham Turner, and Peter Wagner.
Review:
... This beautifully produced volume is a handsome contribution to the ever-widening study of Hogarth's graphic work. (Choice)
... Anyone interested in the present state of Hogarth scholarship will wish to consult this volume. Simon Turner(Times Literary Supplement)
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements vii
The Analysis of Difference by Bernadette Fort and Angela Rosenthal 3
Plates:
A Harlot's Progress 16
A Rake's Progress 22
Marriage A-la-mode 30
I. Crafting the Erotic Body
''A Wanton Kind of Chace'': Display as procurement in A Harlot's Progress and Its Reception by James Grantham Turner 38
The Flesh of Theory: The Erotics of Hogarth's Lines by Frederic Ogee 62
Professional Femininity in Hogarth's Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn by Christina Kiaer 76
II. The Anatomy of Difference
Spotting the Symptoms: Hogarthian Bodies as Sites of Semantic Ambiguity 102
Unfolding Gender: Women and the ''Secret'' Sign Language of Fans in Hogarth's Work by Angela Rosenthal 120
Manly Satire: William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress by Mark Hallett 142
''Nature Revers'd'': Satire and Homosexual Difference in Hogarth's London by Richard Meyer 162
III. Cultural Critique
The Fetish over the Fireplace: Disease as genius loci in Marriage A-la-Mode by David Solkin 176
Marriage in the French and English Manners: Hogarth and Abraham Bosse by Sarah Maza and Sean Shesgreen 192
An Un-Married Woman: Mary Edwards, William Hogarth, and a Case of Eighteenth-Century British Patronage by Nadia Tscherny 212
Hogarth's Working Women: Commerce and Consumption by Patricia Crown 224
Embodied Liberty: Why Hogarth's Caricature of John Wilkes Backfired by Amelia Rauser 240
IV. Race and Representation
''A Voluptuous Alliance between Africa and Europe''': Hogarth's Africans by Davis Bindman 260
A Fashionable Marriage by Lubaina Himid 270
Lubaina Himid's A Fashionable Marriage: A Post-Colonial Hogarthian ''Dumb Show'' by Bernadette Fort 278
Works Cited 294
Contributors 311
Index 313
Photography Credits 320
Drawing on a broad array of methodologies, the authors of the fifteen essays gathered in this volume include the latest insights of cultural history, gender studies, and visual theory to look afresh at a constellation of themes and issues prominent in Hogarth's work: the construction of diverse social, sexual, and racial identities; the role of women in the family and the public sphere; the critique of a culture of increasing commodification and imperial expansion; issues of politics and patronage; the body as a bearer of aesthetic as well as erotic desire. The volume also features the autobiographical testimony of a contemporary black feminist artist who took Hogarth's work as an inspiration.
By looking at this unsuspected dimension of Hogarth's work, The Other Hogarth both presents a revisionist perspective on the artist and invites us to read in his images the broader operations of eighteenth-century visual culture.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are David Bindman, Patricia Crown, Mark Hallett, Lubaina Himid, Christina Kiaer, Sarah Maza, Richard Meyer, Frédéric Ogée, Amelia Rauser, Sean Shesgreen, David Solkin, Nadia Tscherny, James Grantham Turner, and Peter Wagner.
Review:
... This beautifully produced volume is a handsome contribution to the ever-widening study of Hogarth's graphic work. (Choice)
... Anyone interested in the present state of Hogarth scholarship will wish to consult this volume. Simon Turner(Times Literary Supplement)
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements vii
The Analysis of Difference by Bernadette Fort and Angela Rosenthal 3
Plates:
A Harlot's Progress 16
A Rake's Progress 22
Marriage A-la-mode 30
I. Crafting the Erotic Body
''A Wanton Kind of Chace'': Display as procurement in A Harlot's Progress and Its Reception by James Grantham Turner 38
The Flesh of Theory: The Erotics of Hogarth's Lines by Frederic Ogee 62
Professional Femininity in Hogarth's Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn by Christina Kiaer 76
II. The Anatomy of Difference
Spotting the Symptoms: Hogarthian Bodies as Sites of Semantic Ambiguity 102
Unfolding Gender: Women and the ''Secret'' Sign Language of Fans in Hogarth's Work by Angela Rosenthal 120
Manly Satire: William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress by Mark Hallett 142
''Nature Revers'd'': Satire and Homosexual Difference in Hogarth's London by Richard Meyer 162
III. Cultural Critique
The Fetish over the Fireplace: Disease as genius loci in Marriage A-la-Mode by David Solkin 176
Marriage in the French and English Manners: Hogarth and Abraham Bosse by Sarah Maza and Sean Shesgreen 192
An Un-Married Woman: Mary Edwards, William Hogarth, and a Case of Eighteenth-Century British Patronage by Nadia Tscherny 212
Hogarth's Working Women: Commerce and Consumption by Patricia Crown 224
Embodied Liberty: Why Hogarth's Caricature of John Wilkes Backfired by Amelia Rauser 240
IV. Race and Representation
''A Voluptuous Alliance between Africa and Europe''': Hogarth's Africans by Davis Bindman 260
A Fashionable Marriage by Lubaina Himid 270
Lubaina Himid's A Fashionable Marriage: A Post-Colonial Hogarthian ''Dumb Show'' by Bernadette Fort 278
Works Cited 294
Contributors 311
Index 313
Photography Credits 320