Page 61 - Studio International - March 1972

laying bare real evils and abuses, and spared engravings become afterthoughts—is true and
no one. He was tough, courageous and, unlike important. Another suggestive notion is the
most English artists of the period, not a toady. potential contradiction between the prettiness
On the other hand, he found more of his patrons of Hogarth's painting technique and the
among the aristocracy than has been supposed frequent harshness of his content. For this
and his political sympathies were Tory. He reason his most successful paintings tend to be
does not fit into the tradition of early English those which are least satirical. As Paulson
radicalism between the Levellers and that rightly says : 'he had not learned Goya's
scourge of kings and Tories, Wilkes, with whom lesson, that a painting can be ugly.'
he had one of his bitterest quarrels. He shared Despite its literal blind spots, this remains,
the bourgeois, pragmatic values of his age : a remarkable and extremely thorough book,
individual effort, humanitarianism, liberalism worthy of the best of the monographs in the
and common sense. He was patriotic and series published by the Paul Mellon Centre
distrusted extremes of any kind. The Hogarth for Studies in British Art, such as Benedict
displayed in this book is the historical Hogarth, Nicolson's Joseph Wright. The task of going
a somewhat different personality from the one through the Hogarth sources and documents
presented so brilliantly but so misleadingly a will not have to be done again. But yet another
few years ago by the Marxist scholar, Frederick book needs to be added to the literature: a
Antal. proper study and catalogue of Hogarth's
What of 'Art' ? Here one must distinguish paintings. It too will have to be a long one. q
between the ideas Hogarth expressed in and MICHAEL KITSON
about art, on the one hand, and his actual
paintings, on the other. Paulson is perceptive New Lef review
and masterly on the ideas. He gives what is Screen. The Journal of the Society for Education
certainly the best account in existence of in Film and Television. Winter 1971/2. 75 p.
Hogarth's meaning in each of the media he
used, i.e. painting, engraving and words. His This special issue of a magazine contains many
convincing interpretation of The Analysis of valuable and original documents from the 192os
Beauty is more comprehensive than any in Russia relating to the film activity of that
previously attempted. period, and much useful historical and critical
With purely visual questions, however, his writing about the documents themselves, the
touch is less sure. For instance, he correctly artistic problems and theoretical solutions of the
points out that Hogarth's earliest important time, and about more modern work. One of the
painting, The Beggar's Opera, parodies the best things about the volume is the range of
seventeenth-century composition of The connections it makes, both between all the art
Choice of Hercules, in which Hercules is shown activities and problems in Russia from 1917
torn between two ladies competing for his onwards, of which film is seen as only an
attention, one representing virtue, the other important part, and between that crucial period
sensual pleasure, or vice—but goes on to find and today.
this composition echoed in other contexts in That this has been possible is an indication
which it surely does not apply. (The point, of how much studies in that field of Russian
surely, about Hogarth's Rake, Harlot, etc., is culture have advanced, even in the last five
that, through recklessness or vanity, they begin years. The two sections by Richard Sherwood
by forfeiting the power of choice—and these and Ben Brewster which introduce the most
aren't the only strange places in which the valuable collection of critical and theoretical
reference to The Choice of Hercules turns up.) documents and manifestoes from 'Lef' and 'New
It scarcely seems helpful, either, to see The Lef' are among the most complete and clear
Harlot's Progress as a kind of 'black' descriptions of this complex period that I know.
counterpart to traditional representations of the I suspect this is possible now because we are at
Life of the Virgin. Still more extraordinary is once more familiar with the work and ideas of
the description of Hogarth as 'unexcelled in the time and at the same time more relaxed
pure technique by any other English painter about them. The work can be seen historically
of the eighteenth century'— and this by the in terms of the aspirations of the artists and
time of the final version of The Beggar's Opera, their relative success and failure, and this makes
as early as 1729! What, not Gainsborough ? even more apparent their importance for us
Not Stubbs ? Nor even Reynolds at his best ? today. The documentation and elucidation of
However, the whole question of Hogarth the these confusions and paradoxes is still very
painter needs re-examining in the light of the relevant to an artist today, whatever his medium,
recent exhibition at the Tate, which coincided who has any conscious concern for left-wing or
of course with the appearance of Paulson's book. revolutionary politics. They are particularly
On the other hand, Paulson's observation important, perhaps, in view of the difficulty of
that, with The Marriage a la Mode series in the creating a Marxist aesthetic or artistic practice
mid-1740s, a change occurred in the relationship on the basis of Marx's writings alone.
between Hogarth's paintings and his However, it is worth raising the question as
engravings—up to that point, the former seeming to whether this difficulty arises from the fact
to be studies for the latter, whereas subsequently that Marx's remarks on art are relatively few
the paintings assume primacy and the and scattered, or from a philosophical necessity
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