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A Classical Aspect of Hogarth's Theory of ArtAuthor(s): J. T. A. BurkeSource: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 6 (1943), pp. 151-153Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750429 .

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A CLASSICAL ASPECT OF HOGARTH'S THEORY OF ARTBy J. T. A. Burke

T he striking subject of the first plate of William Hogarth'sAnalysisof Beautys a statuary's yard(P1.41a). In it are assembledthose specimensof classicalsculpturethat the eighteenth centurymost admired, so that the plate is a document of contemporarytaste. The Laocoon group and thefamous statues of Apollo, Venus and Hercules are, moreover, surrounded by 18th centurybuildings and accessories. A French dancing masteris beckoningthe Antinous to stand up straightand put his chest out, like himself. The statue of the seated Judge rests on a capital ornamented,in defiance of Vitruvius and Palladio, with wigs and three-corneredhats.Wheredid Hogarth get the idea for this entertainingand instructivescene? The answer to thisquestion is to be found in three sheets bound amongst some miscellaneouspapers in Hogarth'sautographin the BritishMuseum.1 These sheets are a translationof those sections of Xenophon'sMemorabilia n which Socrates discusses the theory of beauty.2 They are in the hand of Dr. ThomasMorell, the classical scholar and Handelian librettist, and a staunch friend of Hogarth's.3 That hewas also a 'collaborator' in the Analysis of Beauty is shown by certain corrections and emendationsin the third manuscript draft, which the writer has identified as being also in his hand.4One of the extracts from the Memorabiliadescribes a visit paid by Socrates to the yard of hisfriend Clito the statuary. Hogarth must have been struck by the convenience of this device for hissimilar purpose. He constructs his own statuary's yard and fills it with the objects of his choice.In the pages of the Analysis he takes us, first into the yard, and then into the assembly room, todiscuss what he has got ready there to show us. The margins of the plates are a sort of overflowfor objects that have been crowded out from the central pictures. This wealth and directness ofillustration is one of the principal delights of the book, and it is also an essential feature of the Socraticmethod. The ancient Greek would have admired the juxtaposition of the familiar and the august,the nimbleness with which Hogarth's mind ranged over Gods and Goddesses, Windsor Castle,dairymaids, a common jack and a clock "for the keeping of true time at sea." Indeed, Socrateshimself provided the authority for recognizing beauty in unconventional places:

Is then a Labourer's hod, or a dung basket, says Aristippus, a beautiful thing? Undoubtedly,says Socrates; and a shield of Gold may be a vile thing, consider'd as a shield; the former beingadapted to their proper use, and this not.No doubt Aristippus was properly shocked, but Hogarth was delighted. He not only adoptedthe principle laid down in the reply of Socrates, but made it the subject of his first chapter, "OfFitness."In this chapter Hogarth developed the theme that fitness of the parts to the design for whichevery individual thing is formed, either by art or nature, is "of the greatest consequence" to thebeauty of the whole. Similarly, in the Memorabilia,Socrates had said that "all things, that menmake use of, seem good and beautiful for the same purpose, namely the proper use to which it isapplied." By stressing the relationship of parts to the whole, Hogarth was able to analyse hisillustrations n much greaterdetail. In shipbuildinghe points out that the dimensionsof every part

are regulated by fitness for sailing: "When a vessel sails well, the sailors call her a beauty; the twoideas have such a connexion !" It is in his analysis of the human form, however, that he is at hishappiest, and here again the cue comes from the Memorabilia:Aristippus asking him whether he knew anything that could be called beautiful; yes, saysSocrates, many things. Are then all things alike? says he. No, replied Socrates, there is as widea difference between them as is possible. How then, says Aristippus, can that be beautifulwhich is unlike what is beautiful? Very easily, says Socrates, because a man that is beautifuland well made for running a Race is very different from one that is so for wrestling.

1 MS. Add. 27992, f.- 33-35.2 Book III, Chapter 8 (part only) and Chapter io.3 There is an excellent character sketch of Morell in John

Nichol's Literary llustrations,1812-1815, I, pp. 655-656.4 The third manuscript draft is contained in two quartovolumes, MSS Egerton 301o5 and 3016.

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1552 J. T. A. BURKEIn his first chapter Hogarth substitutesfor the runner and the wrestler, the race-horseand thewar-horse. For his final example he takesthe Hercules,which has all its parts fitted for the purposeof the utmost strengththat the human form can bear:

The back, breast and shoulders have huge bones and muscles adequate to the supposedactive strength of its upper parts; but as less strength was required for the lower parts, thejudicious sculptor, contrary to all modern rules of enlarging every part in proportion, lessen'dthe size of the muscles gradually down towards the feet; and for the same reason made theneck larger in circumferencethan any part of the head; otherwisethe figure would have beenburden'd with an unnecessaryweight, which would have been a drawbackfrom his strength,and in consequence of that, from his characteristicbeauty.1It is amusing to note, in passing, that Diderot, in the Salon of 1765, borrowedthis illustration,together with the war-horse and the race-horse,without acknowledgement. His version, which issufficientlylively to deservequoting, begins with a characterof Hercules and continues:-

Surquellespartiesd'un homme de cet 6tat l'exag6rationpermanentedoit-elle principalementtomber? Sur la tete? Non; on ne bat pas de la tete, on n'6crase pas de la tete... Sur lespieds? Non. Il suffit que les pieds portent bien la figure, et ils le feront, s'ils sont aussi ' peupres proportionn6s? la hauteur. Sur le cou? Oui, sans doute. C'est l'origine des muscles etdes nerfs; et le cou sera exag6r6de grosseur,un peu au deli de la proportiondonn6e.2The beauty of different physical types is a theme to which Hogarth returns in chapter XI,"Of Proportion." Here he distinguishesbetween purely formal beauty and the beauty of fitness:the first is governedby the serpentineline, the second arises"chieflyfrom a fitnessto some design'dpurpose or use." His classical illustrationsare the Antinous, Mercuryand an imaginary figure ofAtlas. More numerous are the delightful examples taken from his own observationsof everydaylife:-

Watermen,too, are of a distinctcast, or character,whose legs are no less remarkable or theirsmallness, for as there is naturally the greatest call for nutriment to the parts that are mostexercised, so of coursethese that lye so much stretched out, are apt to dwindle, or not grow totheir full size. There is scarcelya watermanthat rowsupon the Thames, whose figure doth notconfirm this observation.3In a conversationwith Parrhasius, he painter, Socratesdiscusses he expressionof character bythe face. Again, Hogarth follows his argument; again, the illustrationsare entirely his own andthe theory of fitness is wedded to the theory of the serpentine line. The grossnessof Silenus, forinstance, is representedby the bulging lines running through the featuresof his face as well as byhis swinishbody. Plain lines, on the other hand, render the face "silly and ridiculous."4The Greekinfluence on the Analysiss, as all influences should be, a stimulating rather than adominating one: Hogarth'sfancy plays with the ideas, assimilatesthem into his linear system andillustrates them from his personal observation. Socrates relates the beauty of architecture to

theconditions of climate; his illustration of the house, however, is valid only for the Mediterranean.Hogarth discards the illustration but employs the argument to pour scorn on contemporary classi-cism: "Were a modern architect to build a palace in Lapland, or the West Indies, Paladio must behis guide, nor would he dare to stir a step without his book."'5It was remarks like the above that gained Hogarth his reputation, which still persists, as anenemy of the ancients and the Old Masters, and made him the target of contemporary artists likePaul Sandby and modern critics like the late Roger Fry.6 No estimate could be farther from the

1 The Analysisof Beauty, 1753, p. 15.2 Diderot, Oeuvres, d. Ass6zat, x875-77, Tom. X, p. 305.3Analysis, p. 85.4Analysis, p. 129.

5 Ibid., p. 45.6 See the section on Hogarth in Roger Fry's Reflections nBritishPainting, 1934.


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A CLASSICALASPECT OF HOGARTH'S THEORY OF ART 153truth. The Analysis s Hogarth's testament to the culture of the Mediterranean. His quarrel wasnot with the ancients, but with the connoisseurs; not with the classics, but with contemporaryclassicism. He constantlyappeals to the standardsof classicalsculpture. Moreover,the comparisonthat we havejust made shows that in one vital respectHogarth'sspiritwas truer to the Greekthanthat of the contemporarieswith whom he warred. He had inherited the desire for new things aswell as the love of old ones. Socrates was able to see beauty in a labourer'shod and a dung basket;Hogarth in a commonjack and a tea-lamp. Both rebelled against the dead hand of convention,and both suffered for their rebellion. Hogarth, we have seen, listened with advantage to Socratestalking in the yard of Clito; his debt to classical antiquity was a real one, and none the less sobecause his statement of it bears the impressof an original mind.


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a-The Statuary's Yard. From William Hogarth, Analysis of Beauty, 1753 (p. I5 I)

b-Hogarth, Detail from the Second Picture ofthe Election Series (p. 223)c-Sir Joshua Reynolds, Eleanor Torriano (Mrs.Joseph Martin) and her son. E. Holland Martin Coll.,Overbury Court, Tewkesbury (p. 220)


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