William Hogarth FRSA (/ˈhoʊɡɑːrθ/; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art.

His father underwent periods of mixed fortune, and was at one time imprisoned in lieu of payment of outstanding debts, an event that is thought to have informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge.

[4] Influenced by French and Italian painting and engraving,[5] Hogarth's works are mostly satirical caricatures, sometimes bawdily sexual,[6] mostly of the first rank of realistic portraiture.

Around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St John's Gate, was imprisoned for debt in the Fleet Prison for five years.

[11] In 1720, Hogarth enrolled at the original St Martin's Lane Academy in Peter Court, London, which was run by Louis Chéron and John Vanderbank.

Hogarth recalled of the first incarnation of the academy: "this lasted a few years but the treasurer sinking the subscription money the lamp stove etc were seized for rent and the whole affair put a stop to.

"[13] Hogarth then enrolled in another drawing school, in Covent Garden, shortly after it opened in November 1724, which was run by Sir James Thornhill, serjeant painter to the king.

In the bottom left corner, he shows Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish figures gambling, while in the middle there is a huge machine, like a merry-go-round, which people are boarding.

[16] Other early works include The Lottery (1724); The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by the Gormagons (1724); A Just View of the British Stage (1724); some book illustrations; and the small print Masquerades and Operas (1724).

In the following years, he turned his attention to the production of small "conversation pieces" (i.e., groups in oil of full-length portraits from 12 to 15 inches (300 to 380 mm) high.

[21][22] Hogarth's other works in the 1730s include A Midnight Modern Conversation (1733),[23] Southwark Fair (1733),[24] The Sleeping Congregation (1736),[25] Before and After (1736), Scholars at a Lecture (1736), The Company of Undertakers (1736), The Distrest Poet (1736), The Four Times of the Day (1738),[26] and Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn (1738).

[32] A Harlot's Progress depicts the fate of a country girl who begins prostituting – the six scenes are chronological, starting with a meeting with a bawd and ending with a funeral ceremony that follows the character's death from venereal disease.

The series, which is set in a Classical interior, shows the story of the fashionable marriage of Viscount Squanderfield, the son of bankrupt Earl Squander, to the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant, starting with the signing of a marriage contract at the Earl's grand house and ending with the murder of the son by his wife's lover and the suicide of the daughter after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband.

He has to describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl ...

Among these, were the Prohibition of 1678, which barred popular French brandy imports, and the forced disbandment, in 1690, of the London Guild of Distillers,[45] whose members had previously been the only legal manufacturers of alcohol, leading to an increase in the production and then consumption of domestic gin.

[48] Other prints were his outcry against inhumanity in The Four Stages of Cruelty (published 21 February 1751),[42] in which Hogarth depicts the cruel treatment of animals which he saw around him and suggests what will happen to people who carry on in this manner.

One of the accusers holds a letter from the woman to Tom, speaking of how wronging her mistress upsets her conscience, but that she is resolved to do as he would have her, closing with: "I remain yours till death."

The fourth, titled The Reward of Cruelty, shows Tom's withering corpse being publicly dissected by scientists after his execution by hanging; a noose still around his neck.

[53] This portrait, and his unfinished oil sketch of a young fishwoman, entitled The Shrimp Girl (National Gallery, London),[54] may be called masterpieces of British painting.

76, which attacks a connoisseur's "servile attention to minute exactness", seems to be more likely a response to the Hogarth supporter, Benjamin Ralph and his book, The School of Raphael (published in May 1759),[57] in the Idler essay no.

[58] In Reynolds' Discourse XIV, he grants Hogarth has "extraordinary talents", but reproaches him for "very imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempt[ing] the great historical style.

"[59] Writer, art historian and politician, Horace Walpole, was also critical of Hogarth as a history painter, but did find value in his satirical prints.

Back home, he immediately executed a painting of the subject in which he unkindly represented his enemies, the Frenchmen, as cringing, emaciated and superstitious people, while an enormous sirloin of beef arrives, destined for the English inn as a symbol of British prosperity and superiority.

[67] In 1745, Hogarth painted a self-portrait with his pug dog, Trump (now also in Tate Britain), which shows him as a learned artist supported by volumes of Shakespeare, Milton and Swift.

[77] By some of Hogarth's adherents, the book was praised as a fine deliverance upon aesthetics; by his enemies and rivals, its obscurities and minor errors were made the subject of endless ridicule and caricature.

[81] Hogarth lived in an age when artwork became increasingly commercialized, being viewed in shop windows, taverns, and public buildings, and sold in printshops.

According to Paulson, Hogarth is subverting the religious establishment and the orthodox belief in an immanent God who intervenes in the lives of people and produces miracles.

Freemasonry was a theme in some of Hogarth's work, most notably 'Night', the fourth in the quartet of paintings (later released as engravings) collectively entitled the Four Times of the Day.

[98][99] His friend, actor David Garrick, composed the following inscription for his tombstone:[100] Farewell great Painter of Mankind Who reach'd the noblest point of Art Whose pictur'd Morals charm the Mind And through the Eye correct the Heart.

For example, Gavin Gordon's 1935 ballet The Rake's Progress, to choreography by Ninette de Valois, was based directly on Hogarth's series of paintings of that title.