“The Pleasure of Progress: Hogarth and the Pictorial Sequence”
Résumé
William Hogarth (1697-1764) remains one of Britain’s best loved painters.
His most renowned works, the series relating to moral subjects, are rarely
displayed together, and will be united at the Soane Museum for the first
time in its history. This book, which accompanies a major exhibition at the
Soane Museum in October 2019, focusses tightly on Hogarth’s series;
The Soane Museum’s own Rake’s Progress and An Election, as well as
Marriage a la Mode, the Four Times of Day, as well as the three surviving
paintings of The Happy Marriage engraved series such as Stages of
Cruelty, Industry and Idleness and Gin Lane and Beer Street. Edited by
David Bindman, a world authority on Hogarth, it comprises four essays by
leading academics along with Bindman’s own introduction to each of the
series according to the themes of ‘place’ and ‘progress’.